by Walker, Jon
This moment doesn't last long, though, as David moves just beyond sight of the center. In the field to his right, a group of farmhands works on carefully hand-pollinating apple trees with paint brushes. Beside the road on his left, a pale man covered in sores musters what little strength he has to beg any passerby for vitamin B-12. His dark hair has thinned unevenly, and one of his eyes is permanently half closed and crusted over by some infection.
The beggar's spot is well chosen -- close to the health center but just out of sight. No one would dare directly defy the Health Department by sharing vitamins with a defiant right in front of one of their offices. Acting so brazenly could be interpreted as questioning the Health Department’s decision; if David took that risk, he could end up sharing this man’s fate. Yet the beggar was close enough that people who just received their rations might feel generous or willing to trade him some for a day's work. Unfortunately for the beggar, he looked like he had already passed the tipping point. He was clearly too weak to work in exchange for some extra B-12, but there was no way he was going to recover any of his strength without some. Mostly likely he will soon succumb to any variety of infections. David knows that he could shave off a small amount from his family's rations without causing them any ill effect or raising red flags on their plasma tests. The Public Health Department always builds in a small margin of safety for everyone’s rations and turns a blind eye to the black market, but David can’t waste something so valuable on this man. He needs to carefully save his rations for something more important. David stays quiet as his cart slowly moves past the desperate man, trying not to look him directly in his one good eye.
CHAPTER 4
Year of Landing 125
David Corvus is sitting at his kitchen table drinking a cup of herbal tea and eating a small homemade pastry. The grunting and snorting of his herd of semi-domesticated dernbeasts is just barely audible from inside his farmhouse. The building itself is a great example of fourth-generation architecture on New Eden, built mostly with simple local materials with just a few touches of the old world. It is rustic compared to the ship-brought prefabs or the first buildings in Ararat but very well designed and comfortable. It is designed to take maximum advantage of the natural light and Mediterranean-like climate on the island of Prime.
The house and most of the other possessions in it are made of local wood, leather, fabric or stone. Besides a few elements inside electronic components and the family’s special cast iron pan issued to prevent anemia, almost nothing in the home is made of metal since New Eden’s crust is so naturally poor in heavy elements. Items that need to be particularly strong and malleable, like plumbing or cutlery, are instead made from advanced polymers or speciality ceramics.
A wind turbine out back, a water cistern, and two solar systems on the roof make the house run and allow David's farm to operate mostly independently. The systems are enough to provide basic running water and sufficient electricity for super efficient lighting plus a few appliances. Hot showers are possible if they are kept very short or taken at the end of the day after the sun has gotten a chance to warm the solar-powered hot water heater. This is only a minor inconvenience for the family since as farmers they tend to bathe after a long day outside.
In the living room to the right of the fireplace rests the family’s most valuable possession -- a slightly damaged 26 cm screen computer. It is the family’s main source of music, entertainment, and information, and it allows for communication with the rest of the colony. It is connected to New Eden’s small internet and is filled with movies, books, songs, and shows from the old world. The collective highlights of several centuries of Earth culture are all in one incredibly small package. The screen started life as a portal tablet brought with the colony ship from Earth, but after the second wave of ships failed to arrive, tablets quickly became too valuable for any regular person to just carry around and potentially break. Now, the tablet remains permanently mounted to a very large, hand-crafted piece of furniture for safety.
The first wave of ships carried the essentials to produce food, support human life, and found a colony. The second and third wave of ships were supposed to bring most of the equipment to jumpstart a range of local industries, but for reasons unknown they never arrived. Everyone on New Eden has their own theories as to why. The theories span the spectrum from the mundane, like budget cuts, to the deeply depressing, like thermonuclear war destroying the Earth, to the otherworldly, like alien hijackings. Whatever the reason, the people of New Eden have been forced to act for generations as if they are truly on their own. As a result, it will probably be several generations before New Eden can create anything even remotely comparable to this tablet in large quantities with so many other industrial projects taking precedent. In the meantime, these advanced pieces of old-world technology have become very precious. For the Corvus family, their screen is a source of pride and status. Most of the other farmers living out on this frontier region of the island could only afford something much smaller, like a retrofitted old phone.
While David is lost in thought the backdoor that leads to the kitchen bursts open with the energy of a seven-year-old boy excited to be done with school for the week. Close behind him is his 12-year-old brother, a lanky boy with dark brown hair and a tan which proves he spends much of his time outdoors.
The younger brother, Bobby, starts rapidly speaking as soon as he sees his father. “Hi dad, can I watch cartoons before dinner? Please, dad! Please?”
“Sure son, but only for an hour,” David answers.
Bobby runs toward the living room giving him only a quick, “Thanks, dad” while making his selection before plopping himself down on the floor in front of the one modest screen. He is immediately lost in the world of bright colors and weird characters made by artists hundreds of years ago on a planet light years away.
As his oldest son walks by to join his brother, David lightly grabs his arm. “Not so fast, Mark. Sit down for a second and tell me what you learned in school.”
Mark gives him an irritated and questioning look as he tilts his head toward his brother already enjoying his show. “Why does he get to go straight to watching cartoons?”
David gives his oldest son a shrug and leans in close to answer. “He’s learning addition. What is there to really say about two plus two? Come on, sit. You will get a chance to watch whatever you want tonight.”
Mark takes the other chair and smirks as he breaks off a piece of his dad’s pastry. After he finishes chewing his first bite, he says, “Well, we have been focused on biology a lot recently.”
David responds encouragingly to get his son to go on. “That’s good. Biology is important. Especially important for farmers to know. Have you been learning about New Eden or Earth biology?”
Mark answers as he goes for another small piece. “Both, sorta. The teacher said we are starting from the beginning. Apparently the reason all life on Earth, Mars, Titan, and New Eden is so similar is that it must have all started on the same planet and spread from there by, like, bacteria on meteors or something.”
David nods his head approvingly while still trying to slightly correct him. “Well, that is technically just a theory. We don’t know for sure if that is exactly the reason all the life we have found is similar, but that is definitely where the evidence points.”
After swallowing a large bite Mark responds, “Yeah, it is something about how all our sugars and proteins have, like, the same rotation or something. Which is why we can get most of our calories we need by eating the local plants and animals, and they can eat us. But even though all the life started similarly, it all evolved for different environments. Which is why the Public Health Department is so important. New Eden’s soil doesn’t have any cobalt, so the local animals evolved not to need it, unlike all Earth animals that need trace amounts for vitamin B-12. They have to work hard to bring it down from space and ration it to make sure everyone gets enough, or else we would all die and humanity would go extinct! Earth pl
ants don’t need it, though, which is why we can still grow Earth crops.”
David had been waiting weeks for Mark to be taught this particular lesson, carefully going over in his head how exactly to respond. He could speak freely here because the Health Department couldn’t or simply didn't bother to bug private homes, but young kids aren’t good at keeping secrets or controlling their emotions. Teenagers also aren’t known for their level-headed self-control or long term thinking. A young man saying the wrong things to the wrong people could get himself or his family declared defiants or worse. That left David in a very difficult position. How do you tell your children the world is horribly unfair but also that it can’t be changed? How you do get them to understand that while the cobalt chains are lighter than silk they are also stronger than steel?
David answers his son with a line he had carefully rehearsed in his head for days. “Well, son that is close but not exactly right.”
Mark gives his dad a curious and fairly serious look. “What do you mean it isn’t right? Are you saying the school is lying to me?”
“Oh, no,” David answers. “What you learned was basically right, it's just that the chemistry, technology, and everything is a lot more complicated than what you learned. It's like when you explain stuff to your little brother. Sometimes when people are teaching others, they dumb it down. They simplify it to make sure people only get the basic message they want them to. They will leave out a lot of important stuff because they don’t think people would be able to understand, would get confused, or react the wrong way. Many people on New Eden feel teaching shouldn’t be about giving people all the information at once, but giving them just enough to make sure they don’t make a big mistake. You understand what I’m trying to say?”
Mark gives his father a slightly confused look but says, “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Ok, good. Go join your brother before mom gets back,” David says as he gets up from the table to put his dishes in the sink.
Mark runs over to the living room. He shoves his brother to move over so he can get a better view of the modest screen. Bobby gives him an annoyed look but quickly gives in. Fighting could cost him his cartoon privileges and isn't worth it.
David takes a deep breath while standing over the sink. He believes that talk went well, but it is always tough to say. Boys that age have the amazing ability to rapidly shift from highly observant to thickheaded at any moment. It is most important to err on the side of caution when it comes to this conversation, just like his dad did with him.
CHAPTER 5
Year of Landing 125
Surrounded by the smell of salty air and the putrid stench of the rotting remains of New Eden’s ocean life, Andrew Miller waits to die. He sits propped up against a wall, too sick to move, just staring out into the Ararat harbor as the sunlight disappears. His once thick curly hair has prematurely receded, creating a sharp widow's peak. He spent the last hour watching the small waves slowly turn from blue to gold to orange to black. He knows he will die, and soon. Maybe a few weeks from now, maybe tonight, but it is going to happen soon. When he finally dies he will be carried off by the street cleaners along with the trash and fish guts. Within hours his body will be composted or incinerated.
Lying there in the growing shadows, he thinks back to how he managed to fall so far. A year ago everything was so different, the future was so full of promise. His parents were so proud when his exam scores got him admitted to the university, a truly impressive feat for someone without connections to one of the great families. He was on the path to becoming something.
In one stupid moment that all changed. That drunk asshole fell right out into the street right in front of Andrew’s bike. The idiot scion survived but was injured badly, although it seems most of the damage was caused by his drunken dive into the hard concrete, not the collision. Regardless, Andrew’s involvement in the injury of golden boy was enough to bring down the wrath of the idiot’s mother, the powerful chair of the Department of Aeronautics. Andrew had not only injured a member of one of the great families, but he also committed the sin of drawing attention to one of their embarrassing mistakes.
First, she got him labelled defiant. It cost him his enrollment, his dorm, his vitamin rations, his access to medical care, his future. The verdict devastated Andrew, but it wasn’t enough for her. A defiant can still scrape by, especially if they're still young and good looking. There were things you could do for some spare cobalt. You could work. You could beg. You could degrade yourself. With luck, one rich household might take you on as a menial. You could work jobs far too dangerous or disgusting for regular folk. Half the street cleaners that wash the harbor are defiants themselves. For her, though, cursing him to that fate wasn’t good enough. She wanted him to die in slow agony, so she had him marked as an enemy of her department. At that moment, he went from cast out to truly radioactive.
No one would touch him. No one would help him. Even his parents turned him away to protect his brothers and sisters.
Andrew once spent an entire week outside her mansion trying to beg the woman for forgiveness and mercy, but by the seventh day he was violently turned away by her staff. They made clear, in no uncertain terms, that he was never to return.
Eventually, his search for help lead him to his current perch. In desperation, Andrew started to hang out by the harbor hoping a fishing boat might take him on or a cargo ship would be willing to bring him to the quarries or lumber camps where he might have better luck. He spent months by the harbor begging, able to stay alive only by eating trash and the cast-offs from fishmongers. He drank from the ornate fountain dedicated to Anthony Parker that overlooks the harbor when no one was looking. Slowly the lack of B-12 and basic medicine started to weaken his body, his nerves and his mind. Once the process started, things quickly went from bad to worse. It is not the lack of vitamins that directly kills most defiants, but the opportunistic infections that invade once their systems are compromised. New Eden’s equivalent to fungi are highly aggressive. Unless a person’s immune system is in top shape or they are being pumped full of special anti-fungals, the molds will start eating away at them, slowly colonizing any open pockets in the human body that are warm and wet. It is the basis for the old joke that New Eden is truly a place of eternal youth only because the old don’t last long. Because of the aggressiveness and diversity of microorganisms on New Eden, it is said that every person who has been cut off from the cobalt so far has technically died a unique death, but all of them have been terrible.
The lucky are the ones who are first driven delusional by the deficiency. Andrew is not so lucky. He gets to experience it with a relatively clear mind.
He is always sleepy now, so once the sun is fully down he coughs himself to sleep.
Suddenly something disturbs him. When he opens his eyes, he can just barely make out the shape of a hooded man standing over him in the darkness. A distant streetlamp provides just enough light to see his outline. Andrew can’t tell if he is still dreaming or if his mind is playing tricks on him. His thoughts have been very cloudy for a while, and his memory often fails him. It is possible his mind has fully broken at last. After few moments of struggling to figure out who this man could be, Andrew lets out a weak, wet laugh at the thought that death really does come in a black cloak like in the old cartoons he loved to watch.
A sharp painful kick to his leg immediately stops his laughing and reminds him that he is not yet completely dead. The hooded figure leans in close to speak, “Do you still want to live?”
Andrew's eyes grow wide as his soul latches on to the first thin strand of hope it has known in months. He answers quietly but firmly with all of his strength, “Yes.”
The hooded figure asks a new question, “What would you do in exchange for saving your life?”
Andrew, still not sure if this conversation is real or a delusion, answers with cold determination, “Anything.”
The hooded figure nods slightly with approval before answering, “Goo
d. Now try not to move at all or make a sound. Can you act like you are dead?”
After Andrew nods, he is dragged a few feet and roughly slung into a cart to be taken away like just another piece of unwanted trash.
CHAPTER 6
Year of Landing 128
Terence Lee enters the private sitting room in the residency of the Public Health Department’s main complex, referred to as The Palace by everyone on the planet except when using official forms. The large doors to the adjacent balcony are wide open to let in the natural light and the cooling sea breeze. The sun is already halfway up the sky, filling the room with warm light. The fifth head of the Public Health Department likes to start his day with fresh air and moderate exercise, followed by a hot shower, before eating anything.
When dining alone in the morning, Director Lee prefers to consume his breakfast in the residency. He decides to first step outside briefly before sitting down to eat. From this balcony perched above the city, the beautiful blue water of Ararat Bay fills his view, the Department of Aeronautics compound on the far side of the harbor just a small blip on the horizon. It is one of the finest natural deep-water harbors on New Eden. Along with the pleasant climate and the rich valley created by the Gihon River, it was one of the main reasons this spot was chosen to be the first colony on this world.
The other reason lay directly east across the narrow Crystal Sea. There sits the massive main continent of Goliath, which accounts for most of the land on the planet. Roughly a million years ago, Prime and Goliath were connected by a land bridge, so they still shared similar native species. This meant the original colonists taking over Prime would do minimal damage to New Eden’s total level of natural biodiversity. Goliath, on the other hand, remains off limits to all but the rare hand-selected research teams. It is an unspoiled natural preserve. One of the many responsibilities taken on by previous directors was to assure New Eden didn’t get spoiled, populated and chewed up like the Earth did.
