Azir took the boy to the bunks and dropped off a small bag of personals. Hadeed watched as his gene-father opened a wall-inset sleep pod and inserted the bag into a cubby above the headrest. The bunks were six levels high, stacked above and against each other along one of five parallel corridors each twenty meters long. Several bunks were occupied, the tinted pod glass unable to hide sleeping workers. Hadeed was stunned. The crowded Trayem enclave in Asra provided more privacy than this.
Azir responded to Hadeed’s condescending sneer and said space was at a premium because twenty thousand workers on extended rotations occupied the mines at a time.
“We’re paid to mine, not build an enclave away from enclave,” he insisted.
“Is this all they let you do? Work and sleep?”
“It’s all we need to do, Hadeed. Come.”
As Azir promised outside the enclave three weeks earlier, he showed Hadeed the journey of brontinium from the moment of excavation. From an observation port above an excavation platform, Hadeed watched eagerly as six Hiebim in DMGs placed a twenty-square-foot sheet of harvested translucent green treasure into a vertical slit called a Brachial Narrow, a wheeled and unmanned vehicle then delivered by tractor beam through a portal into the main complex. Azir explained the process of decimation, the next stage in breaking down the brontinium into usable form. Hadeed vaguely understood the science, but he was less concerned about what was actually happening to the ore than he was to the people who surrounded it.
The decimation chamber became a miasma of brilliant reds and oranges as lasers bombarded the sheet, which glowed as it finally began to crack and, after an hour, shatter into foot-long shards. A robotic arm turned the Brachial Narrow to a 45-degree angle, and the shards fell through a port onto a sorting bin, where workers quickly gathered around. They observed the shards as if every second were critical. They threw most pieces onto a moving belt carrying the ore from the chamber, while they doused other shards with a liquid chemical that seemed to remove all color from the ore. Azir explained how the decimation process produced two forms of refinable brontinium, the most common for industrial use – such as in the hull plating of Ark Carriers – and the other, now-colorless variety as a priceless jewel used in more ways than he could imagine. Azir grunted when Hadeed demanded to know how the treasure would be used.
“The way all those who can afford treasure make use of such things,” he said softly. “To wear around their necks, to sculpt, to trade, to auction, to hoard. Matters not of our concern. I did hear a story once about how an extract could be used for medicinal purposes. Carseningen-1, they called it.” He faked a cough. “Rumors, whispers. No consequence here. The result: Chancellors place great stock in our treasure, and they allow us to share in the wealth. What more needs be known?”
Hadeed frowned. “Azir, if they share the wealth, can’t they also share the labor? Look down there,” he said, pointing to the now-quiet chamber where twenty Hiebim were removing the helmets of their biosuits. The men, all with tan skin and most wearing beards, dragged themselves toward the exit, some slumping and all soaking in sweat. “I don’t see Chancellors down there. I didn’t see any outside drilling or in the sleep bunks, either.”
Azir looked around and did not speak until certain the observation post was empty. “Hadeed, do not even begin to suggest there is an inequity of labor here. The Chancellors designed these mines, determined the proper procedures for refining the ore, and used the peacekeepers as front-line engineers to dig the chasms. Do you realize how little resources the colonists had in those early days? We’re fortunate the Chancellory made the investment in Hiebimini and allowed us to share in its profits.”
“That all started a thousand years ago, Azir. I don’t see where we’re much better off now than we were then.”
“That is because you are ten years old and have the sense of a plateau red snake in the dead of winter. Listen to me, Hadeed. I don’t know why you needed to be here. You can’t start some great social revolution, not that anyone would listen to a boy. We have done all this for centuries. The relationship with our partners has never changed …”
“Because they don’t want it to. They earn almost all the wealth. Don’t they? Take it back to Earth and laugh about how they rob us and we don’t fight back.”
Azir cleared his throat. “What they do on Earth means nothing. None of us have ever been there or ever will. Hiebim are comfortable with what we have. We have never raised our voices against the distribution of wealth because we have what our people always dreamed of when they struggled on Earth centuries ago. We have our own home world. We have our clans. We have honest work. Let the Chancellors have their luxuries and their power. It’s what drives them. Always has. As long as they don’t take our partnership away, we need nothing more.”
Azir grabbed his beard and sighed. “Hadeed, there is courage behind your words, but also unbelievable foolishness. What you speak of would require true Hiebim to indulge in ambition and avarice. Since we possess neither, since we are comfortable in our flesh, what could possibly motivate the clans to seek more or better?”
He bent down and rested one hand upon Hadeed’s right shoulder. For the first time Hadeed recalled, Azir looked his gene-son square in the eyes without contempt as he spoke.
“Even then, what purpose would be gained by standing against the Chancellory? The Unification Guard? The Carriers? We could never hope to challenge these. Hadeed, I agreed to bring you here because I felt a momentary obligation. I thought this trip might put your anger at rest, but I appear to have made things worse. Time for you to leave.”
“No, it’s … Azir, I’ve only been here a few hours.”
Azir stepped away and turned his back. “I’ve seen boys like you before. You question the natural order and believe your generation offers a new way.” He sighed. “Haepong. The pack. That’s where you should be. Honor Trayem by fulfilling the purpose of your flesh.”
Hadeed withered, his words a jumbled mess. His gene-father appeared to speak to him out of genuine concern, with a degree of paternal sincerity echoed through the creases of his voice. Hadeed always wondered what such a moment might be like, why the Matriarch had always supplanted such a possibility. He did not agree with Azir’s sentiments, but he cherished the moment and lost his desire to be contentious or argumentative any longer.
Hadeed followed Azir on a quick tour through the remainder of the complex, never asking a question about the operations he saw or the unusual technology he encountered. Upon passing the canteen, Hadeed saw that rarest of commodities – meat – on the plates of Chancellors and a few off-duty peacekeepers. The alien aroma of cooked animal flesh gave Hadeed pause. He gawked as the privileged few tore knives through thick, juicy slabs. A twinge of envy emerged, and suddenly mint cabbage seemed meager at best.
Azir dragged him away.
“It’s not as good as you think,” he told the boy. “Only those who have been raised on beef can hold it down. It was processed on other colonies and imported. Unnatural and probably toxic to us. Far too expensive for Hiebim workers anyway.”
Hadeed struggled to hold his tongue. He wanted to question how Azir knew these things. Had he tried the beef himself? Had anyone ever asked whether the Chancellors could ration beef to the Hiebim as they did with other provisions? However, he did not have a chance to ask.
A Chancellor with swirled golden hair, azure blue eyes, and a glimmering necklace speckled with what Hadeed recognized as refined brontinium pulled Azir aside. Azir told Hadeed to wait in place. The Chancellor, easily a foot taller than Azir and draped in a seamless royal blue sarong, offered Hadeed a side-nod before leading Azir away into private conversation.
Although too far away to listen, Hadeed assumed they were exchanging pleasantries based upon their frequent nods and the hint of a half-smile from the Chancellor. They spoke for all of a minute before the Chancellor swung about and disappeared down one of the typically narrow corridors. Azir stood in place, his head bow
ed, before he motioned Hadeed to join him. When Hadeed came to his gene-father’s side, the boy thought Azir glowed. A second later, however, the man’s apparent joy disappeared inside his beard. Hadeed barely managed one syllable before Azir raised a finger in warning. Hadeed understood and did not say another word.
When they returned to the Scram, their farewell was brief and formal. Hadeed looked into his gene-father’s eyes for any sign of lingering paternal instinct, for a hope that the deal they made of having no further relations after this trip might be rescinded, and today’s time together marked a new beginning. He saw no evidence of the kind.
“Make the Continental team,” Azir said. “Trayem will be watching.”
Hadeed thought to ask, “And will you?”
However, Azir turned away and left the docking tube before the Scram’s stern entry slipped shut. Hadeed said nothing, even though he did not expect Azir to return to Asra for three months. He wanted to be alone with his confounding thoughts, trying to make sense of what this day should mean in the longer picture.
Three weeks later, however, any new connection Hadeed thought he might have made with Azir was effectively severed. He first heard the rumor while eavesdropping on a debate among elders shortly after morning study. He confronted his mother about the story, but she could not confirm it.
One morning on his way to haepong practice, walking through the heart of Asra, he came to the very spot where his nightmare began three years earlier. He stared across the street at the rebuilt Agriculture Ministry and tried to block the images of peacekeepers descending from the sky, of a woman leaping to her death, of bodies charred beyond recognition, of a tall man in a fedora wearing blue glasses. Instead, Hadeed watched as his gene-father entered the front door astride two Hiebim who, like him, were decked out in the beige, full-length tunic of regional government employees. Azir no longer wore a beard.
Prestige, Hadeed would later be told by those who confirmed Azir’s new post at the ministry. Prestige for the clan. A voice in regional affairs, additional water rations, and an observer’s seat on the Regional Sanctum – an honor everyone knew to be ceremonial at best. And perhaps, said one elder in a moment when he let down his guard, a chance to gig clan Harkim, which had dominated the ministry for so long – until, of course, most of them were discovered to be hoarders three years ago.
Those who spoke of Azir’s post – the same one first offered to him as compensation for Hadeed’s injuries – dismissed any discussion of income. No, they insisted. Such talk was unseemly and irrelevant. The Haebims, like all others, would go into the capable hands of Matriarch accounting. This was, they said, a matter of clan pride. A step up for Trayem.
“A better day,” the elder Tariq once mumbled.
Hadeed did not agree, nor did he ask his gene-father about this great honor. Instead, Hadeed rallied his anger and confusion onto the haepong pack, focusing solely on the day when he would be called the greatest Hiebim in the history of the sport. Only then, did he conclude, would anyone listen when he spoke to them about truth and honor.
SIX
THE PRIME REGENT
Hiebimini Peoples Union
Messalina, Capital of Ashkinar
Standard Year (SY) 5281
SIR EPHRAIM HOLLANDER, Prime Regent for Planetary Peacekeeper Operations, despised the morning, when he transacted most of his UG business. Still, he thought of these early hours with less disdain than he did for the midday luncheon with Sanctum delegates or the much-loathed afternoon conferences with clan representatives and trade ministers. All the voices, the din of frivolity which dominated his role in the greater bureaucracy, clustered into a meaningless pattern.
Yet, Ephraim plowed onward, his service to the Collectorate exemplary. Very simply, he had no choice. This was where history brought him, a destination pre-conceived and necessary. How long it would last, he could not say; although he had hoped four years on the job would have sufficed. He knew only that the turning point would come in the form of a sign – an unexpected revelation to validate his years of personal suffrage amid this rabble.
He found satisfaction in the most unlikely of places – the streets of Messalina. Twice a week, he walked among the natives through their narrow, ancient streets past their quaint bazaars and open cafes. At eight feet tall when adding in his ever-present fedora, Ephraim towered over the Hiebim, who cleared a path for him through the busiest crowds. He carried himself with powerful elegance, his shoulders broad, his chest stretched thick and tight beneath his tunic and cape, and his legs rugged in the thighs, built for endurance. His waxen hair – perfectly coiffed each morning by a personal stylist – draped toward his shoulders, each strand the identical length, and the ends curled ever so slightly inward at the neckline. He carried the sweet aroma of poltash weed through the city, his pipe almost always tucked snugly in the corner of his lips.
“They call me Blue-Eyed Bob,” Ephraim mused as he looked out upon the city from the third-level balcony adjacent to his personal chambers. His aide, Elizer Gripphen, had just brought tea and glazed cookies. “They identify me by my glasses because they otherwise have no idea who I am. Yes? They know I am not a tourist come from the Carriers to gawk and buy trinkets that I’ll send back to relatives on Earth. No. I am something different. They aren’t certain whether to honor me or fear me. Four years, Elizer, and they do not know they are in the presence of the most powerful human on Hiebimini. What do you think of that?”
“Very little, sir.” Elizer shook his head as his eyes swept the city. “They’re indigos. As long as their Matriarchs and elders dispense with clan business, they’re not interested in the politics of equivocation. Most of them have walked past the Union all their lives, and they have no idea how we serve them here. Pathetic. This is why I give it little thought.”
Ephraim sipped his tea. “Yes, you have made your views exceptionally clear. I must say, the job you have done to mask that repugnance in their presence has been theatric brilliance.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Ephraim loved having a companion who also understood the challenge of balancing public and private faces on a world where the colonists had made few strides over centuries. He took care not to reveal his disgust, for it surely would have destroyed his carefully crafted façade of being a genuine partner to the Hiebim. He bathed twice daily and rarely wore the same tunic a second time. Each night, as he lay down for bed, Ephraim took a moment to press each hand over his nose and absorb his body’s essence; the musk of Hiebimini was not strong on him, but neither was it undetectable. So, Ephraim longed for the day when his service might end – another passing regent in a centuries-old chain of administrators – and he might be able to retire to Earth with the dignity of more than a scorpion who babysat the soiled people of a desert planet.
“I was walking the cobbles along the Bengalese waterfront yesterday,” he told Elizer. “I passed a stand where a painter was hawking his wares. All his works were interpretations of their much-revered sunset over the blue hills. He must have had thirty canvasses. The only apparent differences were in the angle from which sunset was viewed and the degree to which he blended red and purple. If I were not so unimpressed with the real thing, I might have thought the man possessed the spirit of a romantic.” Elizer placed his hand upon Ephraim’s shoulder; Ephraim grabbed the hand and kissed it. “I often wonder: What would they think if they knew the truth?”
“They wouldn’t, sir. Not in their nature.”
Ephraim laughed. “Ah, yes. The Elizer wit. But I wonder nonetheless. What would they say if they knew that every time I looked up to that green spire atop the Continental Enclave, I imagined a rain of energy slews from the Carriers descending from the clouds and destroying the very symbol of their founding fathers?” He paused to sip. “Whatever would they do?”
“Simple. They’d fear you, sir. Best part is, you’d never have to wonder anymore as you walked the streets.”
Elizer moved behind Ephraim and massaged the
Prime Regent’s shoulders. Ephraim smelled a seductive fragrance: oil of roses. Exotic, rare, probably more expensive than Elizer could afford when on leave aboard the Nephesian, but not surprising. Ephraim enjoyed how his aide frequently tried new body fragrances as special enticement. Elizer was only twenty, Ephraim noted, but he was clearly on a fast track toward a very lucrative career in administration. It was only a matter of time before Elizer would receive bids from regents on more desirable colonies or, better yet, an Earth-based presidium.
Ephraim shook himself out of a momentary trance and insisted on his morning briefing. “My schedule is light, as you promised?”
“Yes, sir,” said Elizer, who took a seat beside Ephraim, tapped the amp on his right temple, and revealed a holocube. “As you requested, I’ve cleared out the mid-morning for the audience with Professor Brium. You’ll have no interruptions.”
“Excellent. And the other …”
“If I may, sir. My intel on Professor Brium suggests she will not be as malleable as most. She was not pleased with your denial of funding for her geothermal mapping, or the previous three times you rescheduled this audience. By most accounts, she is an unpleasant woman.”
“Yes, she is. Like all the most ambitious Chancellors. Present company exempted.”
Elizer offered a half-smile. “She has little use for heads of state or fronts for the bureaucracy. Ever since the incident with her grandmother, she’s been trying to redeem her family name. She will enter the well under a perception that you’re part of the conspiracy against the Brium legacy. As your aide, I would be negligent if I didn’t advise you to tread carefully. She is very loud, and she still has some allies.”
“But of course, Elizer. She is Sanctum-codified, after all. No, you don’t need to worry. When she hears my proposal, I think she will become remarkably malleable.”
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