Harpies of Planet Sutherland

by Brian S. Wheeler

  Chapter 2 - The Law Hates Ignorance

  "The baskets are so strange and beautiful, and still, those foolish followers of Zeb destroy them. They are fools, Emissary Stevens. Fools and idiots, unable to recognize the value in those artifacts the aliens have left behind."

  Emissary Stevens held a breath as Operative Sheridan knelt and picked up a piece of broken scaffolding to inspect the seared edges indicative of laser damage. He was no trained operative, but Emissary Stevens knew that the followers of Zeb possessed more laser guns than any other group of colonists calling the planet Sutherland home. Those who called old Zeb Griffin their mentor and teacher made no attempt to hide their scorn for United Systems governance and law. Emissary Stevens was well aware of the number of Zeb colonists sent back aboard the orbiting starliners for punishment after stealing from the water basins. But none of those settlers had gone so far as to destroy a water basket, to actually harm the contraptions a lost, unseen alien race had left behind.

  Emissary Stevens dreaded that the water basket's destruction had caught an operative's attention. As an official emissary of the United Systems, he operated his office according to a thousand different rules and regulations, all of which changed many times on whim. He wore a United Systems' uniform and held a United Systems' title, and thus was ruled by a bureaucracy whose intricate web was unlike anything humankind had ever seen, a complicated web that stretched outward to the most distant of stars mankind had colonized. That bureaucracy defined Emissary Stevens.

  But of all the men and women who wore one United Systems uniform or another, none operated within that spiderweb of rules and regulations with as much freedom as an operative. The United Systems taxed their operatives to solve the most lurid of crimes, to exterminate the most vile of pests who dared make that bureaucratic web shiver. An operative answered only to himself, and so Trent's imagination summoned terrible traits regarding Operative Sheridan standing before him, with a broken piece of scaffolding in hand, a man with the freedom to go and do as he pleased. Were all of Operative Sheridan's questions laced with innuendo and edges, and were all those questions cruelly asked? Were Operative Sheridan's hand trained for rifle, pistol and dagger, and did Operative Sheridan flinch when he wielded any of his weapons? Was it cunning or hatred that burned in the back of the operative's eyes? So few who colonized the outskirts of the United Systems knew anything regarding the operatives, and so those operatives may as well have been shadow, with rumors filling in for all the facts that remained shrouded concerning those like Operative Sheridan.

  "I'm not a callous man, Emissary Stevens. I'm not blind to such wonder." Operative Sheridan scanned the field crowded with water baskets, admiring the neat rows of the scaffolds' construction. "Many may think otherwise, but operatives are not machines. We've stretched so far into the stars, stepped upon so many worlds, and only now, on this rock called Sutherland, do we find a single trace that there's been another intelligence in this cosmos other than our own. Who do you think created them? What do you guess they were like?"

  Emissary Stevens hesitated to respond. The sheer wonder of the water baskets slowly shifting in their shape to better draw moisture from the dry atmosphere was not lost to him. After fifteen months stationed on the otherwise featureless rock named Sutherland, watching as the temperamental followers of Zeb built one structure after another to honor their construction contracts, interest in anything other than the water baskets had deserted him. Emissary Stevens often drove a magcar out into the water basket fields when he needed a break from the endless forms of United Systems bureaucracy that stacked upon his desk. The air was so dry upon Sutherland that a person's throat scratched from the effort of gathering breath; but in the fields, the air was damp and sweet. Water never tasted as pure as it did from one of the water basket's stone basins. There was no trace of the copper, chemical taste so prevalent in the water stocked aboard the starliners. Drinking such pure water intensified one's craving for what the basins offered. Though the water baskets so routinely replenished their basins, that water was not limitless in supply. Thus Emissary Stevens' office oversaw the formulas that decided how much water was allocated to those colonists who worked to settle Sutherland, colonists who followed the teachings of Zeb Griffin, colonists who had no respect to give to any governance that dared tell them how much water they might take in order to quell their thirst.

  Emissary Stevens had watched teams of United Systems archeologists land upon Sutherland to scour every inch of that rock in search for clues of the aliens who so long ago constructed the water baskets. They had scanned as deeply below the rocky surface as their instruments could penetrate, and yet none of those teams yet found any trace of that race responsible for building those baskets. No skeletons or bone had ever been unearthed. No pieces of an alphabet had ever been pulled from the ground. They had found no stone tablets, not a single shard of clay. And so, mankind, when looking upon those water baskets, felt as lonely as ever amid the stars. The ghosts of another sentient race haunted humankind, who could do no more than dream of the creators who had built the fields of water baskets.

  Any operative knew as much, and Emissary Stevens paused to think how best to answer Operative Sheridan's question. Why would an operative care to question him?

  "No one really knows," the emissary finally started. "No one's found any evidence of what that race may have been like. I keep hoping one of the Zeb colonists might find something as they dig a foundation."

  "Those fools of Zeb wouldn't know when they tripped upon a relic," Operative Sheridan rolled his eyes. "I asked you to guess. Even though United Systems forms and paperwork chain you to your desk, you must have some imagination remaining. Tell me that you boarded a starliner headed for the stars for some reason greater than employment. Whatever you do, don't tell me you're one of those travelers who never peeked out of a the starliner's window. I don't know if I could accept the idea that such an unimaginative bureaucrat could be assigned to supervise fields teeming with alien water baskets."

  Emissary Stevens realized he remembered nothing about the long float aboard the starliner. To him, the time he spent in the starliner felt like nothing more but long days of artificial lighting and hum.

  The emissary turned to his own training when the operative leveled his attention upon him. Trained as a diplomat, Emissary Stevens realized that Operative Sheridan was only prying for the opportunity to answer his questions for himself.

  Emissary Stevens raised an eyebrow. "Who do you imagine built those water baskets?"

  Operative Sheridan grinned. "I thought of nothing else on the float out to this rock. I've researched every bit of information I could find regarding the water baskets. The skill of their craft is astounding. Their scaffolds are so light, and yet so strong. I wonder what our engineers would give for supplies of such material.

  "The balloons are no less mesmerizing. Durable and thin. Perhaps the skin of some creature that once scurried about the landscape, maybe even the skin of the very creature who crafted them. And to still remain so flexible after so long. To somehow know what shape's needed to attract the most moisture. Subtle, incredible work."

  The operative tossed the charred fragment of the scaffold upon the ground in sadness and disgust. "Whoever made these water baskets had to be delicate creatures. They were not creatures who blindly, violently struck out at rivals and enemies. They were more cunning. I like to think they lived more gracefully. I imagine them floating across this landscape, long slender beings with a beating heart that illuminated them. It's foolish to dream such things, but I think those creatures' eyes twinkled like the stars, and that touching their hand was enough to fill you mind with song."

  Emissary Stevens turned his face and stared down the row of water baskets so as to hide his expression from the operative.

  Operative Sheridan chuckled when Trent again faced him. "You think I'm crazy, but I assure you that insanity is no luxury I can afford. You must think I ramble, but let me promise you, Emis
sary Stevens, that I am here to see that not one more water basket is harmed by any foolish colonist of Zeb."

  "It's only happened this once."

  "And that's one time too many," Operative Sheridan snarled. "Don't underestimate the value of the commodity those water baskets harvest. All that water makes Sutherland very strategically valuable. Our starliners will drift much further after they stop in orbit and replenish their tanks. Our technicians can even convert this water into engine fuel. We can bring more settlers to neighboring star systems with such a dependable water source close by on this rock. Our kind can have nothing before we have water. I don't believe we've found anything more valuable on any plant we've so far colonized."

  The emissary sighed, realizing his afternoons strolling alone through the water baskets neared an end. Soon, he would no longer be afforded such a pleasure. The baskets attracted too much attention, offered too much, and the United Systems' thirst would only grow stronger upon first sipping from the stone basins.

  "We cannot allow those anarchists of Zeb to jeopardize the water baskets," continued the operative. "Those followers of that long dead fool have built thirteen colonies before this one, and all of them fell to ruin soon after those followers of Zeb erected the last wall of their construction contracts. We must make sure that they do not ruin these water fields."

  "What motivation would they have for harming the baskets?"

  The operative shrugged. "Does it matter? They've already destroyed one, one that stood for eons before they arrived on Sutherland. What motivation do those people have other than to live free, whatever each of them thinks that means, regardless if doing so destroys their world. I fear for those baskets, because I fear those patriots of Zeb hold no appreciation for the race who built them. I fear for those baskets, because I know those of Zeb are clumsy fools. I know the United Systems shares my fears."

  Emissary Stevens wouldn't defend those of Zeb against any of the operative's claims. The United Systems knew no better builders than the Zeb followers, a diverse collection of ethnicities bound together by their political conviction that no man was obliged to follow any law but his own. Those who followed the teaching of Zeb Griffin, dead for almost two hundred years, believed themselves to be self-sufficient. They believed charity of any kind was a wicked vice that held its recipient back from his or her potential, that government, no matter how small, was inherently wicked for perverting a patriot's character. Zeb Griffin never allowed any of his followers to call him leader. Zeb Griffin told them only to live by their own devices, and in turn, those pupils worshipped him like a god.

  "Your eyes tell me, emissary, that you share my concern," the operative turned to return to the waiting magcar. "Let those settlers of Zeb destroy themselves one more time as far as I care. But those water baskets are too precious. I'll not allow them to suffer for the actions of those fools."

  "Perhaps there's hope for them," responded the emissary. "Those settlers broke with tradition by refraining from naming this rock Griffin XIV. Maybe they're finally showing some wisdom in not naming this planet after their old patriarch."

  The operative scoffed. "And so they named the planet after Doug Sutter, none other than Zeb Griffin's right-hand man? Convicted of no less than a dozen murders in the few years he reigned as head of that school following the old man's death. People think operatives are cruel, but we're nothing compared to what old Doug Sutter had been. Nor does changing a name do anything to change a character."

  Emissary Stevens nodded. The operative was right. Still, the emissary empathized with those who proclaimed to be followers of Zeb. Those followers hated him. They distrusted him. Yet, the emissary admired those settlers for the grit it took to establish colonies on new worlds. The settlers of Zeb were always the first to board starliners bound for new planets, and none built structures as quickly and with such strength.

  "You have a plan, Operative Sheridan? You've bugged their communications? You've planted spies among their numbers? You're eavesdropping in all their communities?"

  Mirth danced in the operative's eyes. "We've done none of those things. Our methods have become very advanced. We don't bother with bugs, or computer networks, at all anymore. Too much to sift through. Too much data to stare at. Too much time. Too much waste. And so much always falls through the cracks no matter how hard you squeeze. We've evolved to a very advanced state of subterfuge."

  "What else is there? Mind-reading?"

  Operative Sheridan shook his head. "We want to do more with a mind than read it. We want to do more when something as valuable as the water baskets are at stake."

  Emissary Stevens gulped as he watched the look that formed on the operative's face. "You can't be serious. You're talking about mind control."

  The operative winked. "Not exactly. Something a little different. We think the key to controlling a population as volatile as that of Zeb's followers is to make sure we know what's going into those little brains. You'll see at the construction celebration. You'll see when we throw those settlers of Zeb their special parade."

  The operative offered nothing more as he strode to the waiting magcar. The long ride back to the spaceport that housed the United Systems' municipal offices proved a silent one. Behind them, the water baskets continued to shift, drawing more water into the stone basins at the foot of each scaffold, as they had for centuries, as they had for eons before the arrival of mankind.

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