The Valkyries of Andromeda

by Lindsay Peet

CHAPTER FOUR

  My plans for Sirah didn’t work out, quite, but things went well enough. You know how it goes with the best-planned lays and all that.

  Erah and the shakers and movers of Caliuga City had a reception dinner arranged for us, that I would have learned about at our afternoon meeting, but as I explained before, when I was heading to his place and Sirah, the Mayor was heading to our place and Wanliet, and somehow our paths hadn’t crossed. Beyond the sheer coincidental cock-up in scheduling, it have been because I made an effort to avoid him, as he wasn’t the Rekaburb I’d really been looking to spend time with.

  Anyhow, when I returned to our mansion Wanliet told me about the invitation during our late snack and then I had a rest, as the day so far had worn me out. Later Wanliet and I talked some more, synching up for the reception all the while keeping mind we really weren’t private. My grizzled codger had stayed back, meditating, learning what there was about Caliuga and Caliuga City, talking to the help and also to the Mayor when he’d showed up looking for me.

  W filled out the story Sirah had told me. “The Caliugans left their home planet all set to settle, prepared to prepare their new homes, with grains and seeds and critter zygotes and some tools, mostly tools to make more tools. You know, if you’d planned the best settlers to land on a strange planet first the Caliugans might top the list. Since then others have landed here, all by mistakes and mishaps of one kind or another, and the Caliugans helped them all out. Part of their faith, Erah said.

  “So everybody was kind of put out when the Planetary Union, which started out with just two settlements, came around and demanded money to police the trade routes. There had never been problems on the trade routes before, but once shipments started disappearing most signed on, and now Caliuga’s the only town left that hasn’t joined.”

  Wanliet, true to his fascination with details, went on to tell me with exhausting completeness about how the Caliugans had improvised and invented, and how, in small somewhat charming ways their everyday life was more humble, grounded, and difficult than what we were accustomed to. These pilgrim lives were much as earth-life had been, long long ago. Moving around Caliuga was like using a time machine and viewing the past. As I thought on it I saw it wasn’t much more rough than the Kipple, the planet I grew up on, but that was a whole different history. I’ll spare you mine and Wanliet’s details, and just give the overview.

  However, he pointed out, as each subsequent group had made planetfall there, they’d brought with them a slightly more modern language and whatever odd artifacts and tools they happened to have with them. Even though all spoke what they considered the universal tongue, each colony’s lingua franca was different enough from the others’ that they really couldn’t communicate easily, and human translators were needed for the more technical messages.

  Caliuga had thirty-five dialects, the more ancient ones almost alien enough to qualify as languages. The tongue of Caliuga City was one of these. And, yes, it turned out my nose was right, and there were real horses on Caliuga, and camels, too. They’d also brought sheep and cows and dogs and cats, but they were very careful about how they reproduced, so almost all the animals were sterilized.

  Life on Caliuga was an odd mix of our eighth century through our fourteenth century, or about fifty years ago, with most of the better parts retained, and even with some choice about the particular mix of old and new available by moving to a different colony with a different set of settlers. There was freedom and autonomy and choice, at least until the P. U. showed up.

  Wanliet stopped and took a long, deep drink from his beer and then looked up, beaming, having finished his story of the Caliugans and their mostly successful struggles to thrive. I appreciated survival stories, and he knew it. We both appreciated Caliugan beer, which we agreed was fuller and more satisfying than any other we’d tasted.

  During his tale Jedub and Lordano had returned from their tour. Judging from their smiles they evidently agreed about the quality of Caliugan beverages. Once Wanliet had finished his history, Jedub began telling me about the different liquors and pharmacological herbs of the area, and then Lordano began telling me about the Caliugan’s faith, and the various schismatics that had split off.

  Finally, finally, I got Jedub at least on the track I wanted, which was about the Planetary Union. He’d found out that they were the last two large, important groups to arrive, excepting us, and we weren’t large, really, just important. The Caliugans apparently hadn’t tumbled to the nature of the P. U., but Jedub figured the group that became the P. U. had been arms smugglers. Most likely, they were on the run from the Empire, maybe running arms to rebels, maybe to pirates, they probably didn’t care where the money came from, and they’d had to make a quick jump and ended up here same as the others.

  The land the PU group had taken was not very good for farming, as they’d come so late, but it seems that farming was not what they had in mind anyway. Instead, the site they’d selected was centrally located, and near some trade routes. There they’d founded Solip City. What with their weapons, they started ‘protecting’ some of the trade caravans, which had just begun having problems with mysterious raiders. There was a charge for this protection, of course, and it wasn’t too long before Solip City was the wealthiest and most powerful community on the planet of Caliuga.

  Then its leaders expanded the operation, rationalizing weights and measures, standardizing currencies, promoting and then enforcing a uniform commercial code of conduct, with fees, licenses, and regulations, and fines, and promoting their tongue, which was the nearest to ours as it happened.

  Thus was born the Planetary Union.

  Jedub went on. “How about another beer, okay? All right, then. So, after awhile some colonies had drought, and others had floods.” “How do you make a drought?” I wondered. “The PU came along and helped them out, gave them cheap loans and supplies. When the other colonies saw that the PU had a softer side, too, most of them signed on. Now Caliuga City’s the only holdout, maybe because they don’t trust the PU, maybe because they put their faith in their god, who knows.

  “Finally came the treaties, or Treaty, as the PU called it, and it offered the same deal to each colony. The Planetary Union would take care of all planet-wide issues, threats, disputes, and problems, through its force of Ossifiers of the Law, its Courts, and its Regulatory Agencies. In return, the colonies would pay a percentage of their wealth regularly to the PU.”

  I was impressed. “They move fast, these PU guys, don’t they?”

  “Efficient operation, I guess. Also, the opposition was disorganized, weak, unfocussed,” said Jedub.

  “Is that all there is to why Caliuga City hasn’t joined? Mistrust, faith in God?” I asked.

  He shrugged. I understood; who knows why people do things? Often as not, even they don’t know why.