by Chogan Swan
“So I've given each of you fifteen rides already, then.”
“Today's was definitely the best of all of them though.”
“Well, Abedebun hardly weighs anything.”
Assegai nodded. “You’d be amazed at the places she can crawl into.”
Una smiled. “I’ve had some flight combat experience in the distant past. Maybe you can show me the simulators when we get back.”
Assegai laughed. “Sure. Everyone would love to see if they can beat you. If you’re any good, you can join my flight on the Team Rocket Squadron.”
“Team Rocket?” Una laughed.
“Yeah. When we were babies we liked the Pokémon cartoons.”
“As long as you aren’t patterning your organization after them. I’ve had my fill of evil overlords.”
“Well, we’ve always understood the law wasn’t on our side, but we’re working on more benevolent strategies. You can be our probationary recruit. But you’ll have to get your pokéball later. But hush! Rogue is ready to talk now.”
Rogue moved to the center of the depression and spoke in a clear voice. “Hello everyone. I’m Rogue. That's my street name, but you probably can't pronounce my birth name, so I’ll stick with Rogue. I am here today as a representative of both the United Federation of Tribes and our ally, the Nii Federation. Both the UFT and the Nii Federation are recognized members of the United Nations. A month ago, the UN recognized the riparian rights of the UFT. This includes recognition of our right to secure the safety and access to a fair and equitable flow of water as it passes to lands where we have treaty rights or hold a mandate from the people who depend on the rivers for life. Member nations of the tribes hold treaties covering the waters of the Gila River from here to the Gulf of California. We also have Federation Tribal Nations in many areas to the north along the Gila.”
Rogue paused for a moment to take a sip of water, sighing with satisfaction afterwards. “Does anyone want another glass of water after hearing all that?” she said with a grin.
“Could I have another cookie?” piped a little girl in the front.
Rogue laughed. “Do we have any more cookies, Abedebun?” she said.
Abedebun stepped forward. “How many children, ten or below, want another cookie?” she piped.
Nine hands shot into the air. Adelwolfa reached into the food bag and pulled out some cookies. Together, she and Abedebun handed them out to the children.
“Does everyone follow me so far?” said Rogue.
“Are you saying you own the river?” said a woman, voice puzzled.
“I'm saying that no one can own the river, but we have the mandate to see that everyone who lives by it can share in its waters but not pollute it or degrade the ecosystem it creates or steal it by creating new dams without the agreement of all stakeholders.”
She turned back to the woman. “Does that clarify my statement?”
The woman nodded.
Rogue smiled. “Now, I have a question. The United Federation of Tribes asserts that we have acted lawfully in arresting George Marston and the people aligned with him for slavery and conspiracy to enslave. Is there anyone who wants to go on record here defending the actions of the arrested parties or who would wish to argue that the NFT had no cause to arrest them?”
A man at the back of the crowd spoke up. “I would cheer as loud as anyone should you hang them, but doesn't the government have jurisdiction?”
Rogue smiled—a tight line on her mouth that showed no teeth. “Do you mean the military junta still calling itself the United States? They’ve abandoned the interior of the country except for the territory surrounding the bases they’re keeping in operation. You may not be aware that the military has arrested the president for alleged involvement in the EMP event that brought all this about. But since this power grab was conducted outside of constitutional guidelines, many in the international arena maintain the US no longer even exists as a viable government holding a mandate from the people.”
Rogue laughed. “I can tell you this much. They never did have a mandate from my people.”
The remark drew a murmur of sympathy from some of her audience.
Rogue held her hands out and shrugged. “The UN has agreed, though, that the United Federation of Tribes has jurisdiction to supervise the negotiation of the areas where we have riparian rights. The UN has yet to recognize the military junta that claims jurisdiction over the North American territory outside our tribal borders.”
Rogue smiled again. “At any rate, our mission to this community was originally peaceful. We hadn't foreseen the issue of slavery and the mutilation of innocent victims. We just came here originally to talk about the raw sewage being dumped into the river.”
Una smiled, but kept it from showing. Rogue could say that honestly only because Una hadn’t had access to the intelligence Una had gathered on Marston.
The crowd was quiet as Rogue paused. “Okay then, let’s talk about the future,” she said. “For the people who choose to stay here, what we want to know is this. Do you want our help? We will insist on certain conditions regarding what happens to the river, but we have ties all along its banks that can benefit you if you stay and join. We can also make trade arrangements that will benefit us all if you decide to and we work together.”
“What restrictions are you making on the river, and what do we even have to trade?” said a gaunt man in front.
“To answer your first question, the main thing is to stop pooping in the water. We realize that this may be a new concept for you, since the accepted methods in the US were always to use drinking water to flush toilets then spend lots of tax dollars to do a shitty job of cleaning it up again before dumping it in the rivers. But if you look over that ridge, you will see the methods of a smarter science that will turn all that organic gold into disease-free humus. And out here in the desert, that stuff comes in mighty handy for growing food.”
She paused to take a drink of water. “We also insist that all of your graywater be used for irrigation and that you don’t dump harmful substances into it or on the land. The communities upstream from you will be held to this standard as well, so you benefit from the practice too.”
A tall, dark-skinned woman, who’d been sitting near the front, stood. Una had seen her earlier when she’d come in with the work crew wearing nothing but rags. Now she wore a bed sheet tied into a sarong. She stood straight, though she kept most of her weight off her left leg. Una frowned. She was one of those who’d been ‘hobbled'.
The woman looked around before speaking. “My name is Regina Clemons. That bastard George Marston and his men took me and my two children captive six weeks ago when they passed through Mesa.” She paused and looked at the people around her. “Terrible things have happened to us, but here is what I realized.”
She frowned. “It all felt familiar. I was a slave, but at least it was obvious what the problem was. Working long hours every day of the week and seeing no future or a way out for me or my children wasn’t even strange. For me, it was only a difference of degree.”
She shook her head. “James Marston was not that different from the bosses I had while I was working a day shift of office work and a night shift in the warehouse. No future, no way up and no way out. Only—in the world before the lights went out—I was the one who’d put the chains on. The last five weeks as I was working in the fields, I thought of so many ways I might have tried to make my children’s future worth something more when assholes like Marston at least had a few restraints on what they could do to people unless we let them. But by that time my options were gone and we were starving.”
She glared at the people seated around her. “Why wasn’t I ready? Why didn’t I fight to the death for my freedom? Why didn’t you? And, back when we had a few choices, why did we sell ourselves? All we needed was a little more than half of us to stand up and make a real change. But instead, we swallowed the lies that politicians told us … year after year after year. And look what happened.
”
She turned to look up the hill at Una. “Now the nice lady up there with a tail comes along, and her Indian girl is making a great speech, but I’ve heard speeches before. I’m not going to close my eyes again. But thank you for getting rid of the trash and thank you for the meal and the drink of water and for giving my children something to eat.” She waved toward the river. “I won’t poop in your river and I’ll look at your plan on working together. But I won’t trade one set of chains for another ever again … just so we are clear.”
Sounds of agreement followed this statement from the people seated around the amphitheater.
Una stood, smiled and bowed low. “Tell Rogue to let them know she’s not my Indian and the Federation is an ally of the UFT, not a direct stakeholder in riparian rights. We get all our water from the Bay of California anyhow.”
“I expect Rogue is about to say just that as soon as you sit back down,” said Assegai.
∆ ∆ ∆
Una sat next to Rogue and watched Mayor Clemons lift the revised copy of the trade agreement from the picnic table and read it, skimming the lines rapidly before putting it down again. She pushed it halfway back across the table and placed a rock on it so it wouldn’t blow away. “So, if we follow the water accords, use your tools and science to join the fight to eradicate the salt cedar along our area of the river and sell the cattle we have on hand. Your people will provide start-up tools, food until we have our first harvest and 30 pairs of breeding goats to get us back into the livestock business. You’ll buy the salt cedar roots we collect and we can either sell the wood to your lumber markets or use it as firewood. Am I forgetting anything?”
“Yes,” Rogue tapped her fingers on the table as she made her points. “You’ll get communication with the rest of the world as well as advisers on agriculture, animal husbandry and security.”
“But the advisers leave after twelve months.”
“If you provide them with the trainees that I mentioned, you won’t need them anymore. Our interest is to get you up and running on your own, not carry your butts forever. We’re looking for good neighbors, not perennial moochers.”
Rogue grinned, though her expression was a little hard. “Your ignorance of how to survive in this environment is not our fault. We’ve learned our lessons from history, pilgrim.”
Clemons narrowed her eyes. “I look like a pilgrim to you?”
“If it quacks like a duck …”
Clemons laughed. “Good answer. I think we’ll take your offer. It’s well thought out, and we’ve got no leverage anyway. Don’t blame me for pushing just to find out who you are, now.”
Rogue shrugged. The corner of her mouth might have lifted a fraction, but the evidence was microscopic. “Welcome to the neighborhood then,” she said.
CHAPTER 27 – GOODBYES
Kaitlin pointed at her target and pulled the trigger. A jet of seawater shot out and hit the mud Kest had just dumped on the screen, sending splatters across the room as the sediment dissolved into slurry and ran down onto the finer screen below. So far no interesting artifacts from the interior of the Valishnu had shown up in the process. The only things they’d uncovered were a few specimens of deep-sea mud life. It seemed the ship had been swept clean and all items stowed before the crew had scuttled her.
Kaitlin smiled. Scuttled. Not a word you had a chance to use every day.
Kest, Amber and Ayleana were working on clearing one of the cargo holds. Humana’s team was clearing the bridge, accessing it from a breach in the fuselage where one of the nacelles had ripped away.
Kaitlin’s contribution was washing away the gunk as part of Ayleana’s team.
They’d started with the screen box on the deck nets of the barge. But as they’d worked deeper inside, Kaitlin had moved the screen inside.
Ayleana had told them about Humana’s crew, the dymba herd she’d been forced to leave behind so she could pursue the niiaH. After hearing the story, Kaitlin hadn’t been able to lose the choking feeling that had hit her for an hour.
From what Kest had said, Ayleana could actually remember what had happened here on the ship in 1799, even though she hadn’t even been born yet.
Except, he hadn’t said born. He’d used a word from the nii language that evidently had more contextual meaning than she could interpret from what Humana had taught her of Nii so far. Literally, the word translated as ‘dawning’, or possibly ‘advent’.
This was the third day they’d been sluicing out mud. Kaitlin paused to move the screen box to the actual floor of the hold. She placed another screen over the port so nothing could wash out accidentally.
A sudden slumping from the mud in the cargo bay allowed them to stop moving it to the screen with buckets and things sped up a lot.
Kaitlin ran the stream of water around the edges, while the others stirred the mud and helped keep the screen unclogged from shells, mollusks and decomposing seaweed.
Another hour filled with hosing and stirring passed. Now, Kaitlin could see that they were in a smallish compartment. Another door—closed—led deeper into the ship. The rest of the compartment was full of smaller doors like lockers. All the doors were closed. No knobs or locks interrupted the almost seamless panels.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Ayleana said. “You can take a break, I suppose, but no mud wrestling.” She stepped outside.
A moment later, Amber tackled Kest, dropping them both into the gunk at the far side of the room. “She didn’t say anything about Jiu Jitsu, did she?” Amber crowed.
Kaitlin laughed and directed the spray onto them, using their thrashing to stir the mud into a slurry that poured out the door through the screen.
In less than ten minutes, Kaitlin was chasing the last of the mud out the door, the combatants were soaking wet, and Kest had tapped out three times.
Ayleana came back, carrying a canister attached to a heavy electrical extension cord. She set it near the one of the smaller doors then pulled a handheld control from one of her harness pockets and began entering commands. She didn’t even remark on the mud streaked across Kest’s face.
After a final series of entries, Ayleana closed the control unit’s cover and tucked it back in her belt pocket. Then, she sat on the floor by the exit and stared at the canister as it sat making a low humming sound.
After a few moments, Amber and Kest moved over and sat on either side of Ayleana. Kaitlin closed the hose nozzle and sat next to Kest, trying to ignore the water wicking up into her underwear.
After five minutes of silence, Ayleana spoke a few words in Nii, and the locker doors all started to hiss with the sound of air passing through a pressure valve. “We’re going to need some waterproof containers,” Ayleana said. She took her com unit from her belt and hit a code sequence. “Branch-sister, I’ve unlocked all the vacuum-sealed storage bins in the aft starboard storage compartment. Would you come open them with me?”
A few moments later, Humana entered the storage compartment. “How did you get the doors open?” she said.
“I have the pass codes,” Ayleana said. “And I knew the charge frequency for charging the system buffer using induction generation.” She hesitated a moment then pointed at a bin by the still-closed door. “That one was Darmien’s. You may want to open it first. The override for the locks is….” She reeled off a string of sounds that Kaitlin recognized as numbers and letters. “I remembered how my vocal chords were arranged at the time. If you like I will just unlock all of them for you now. Then you can release the rest of the locks on the ship.”
Humana jerked her chin forward.
Go ahead. Kaitlin translated the gesture to herself. That one she remembered, anyway.
Ayleana spoke again. With a chorus of soft clicks, the doors popped back, revealing a slot in the edge of each that served for a handle.
“Wow!” said Kest. “I can’t even imagine the engineering needed to keep all those compartments operating even after two centuries of crushing pressure.”
&nbs
p; Humana stepped forward, two hesitant strides, and pulled the door ajar. She peeked inside then opened it wide.
The shelves inside were neatly racked with items in protective sleeves and cases. Humana pulled them out and started sorting through them. When she reached a folio, she opened it to a ream of what looked like paper covered with symbols that Kaitlin didn’t recognize. They weren’t in nii script. Ayleana, looking on from the side, sucked in her breath and motioned with her head to Kest, Amber and Kaitlin.
Time to get out.
Ayleana followed them out of the compartment and moved a large box in front of the door, blocking the way.