Battle On The Marathon

by John Thornton

  When I read again, one of the books, another by that Jules Verne guy, I did start to think again about submarines. My engineering ideas tried to make connections to my current situation. The HMS Sword, the submarine machine in that book, sort-of reminded me again of my spearing my own leg. Sure, I had done it with a spear and not a sword, but both of those were old-time weapons, and I just kept thinking about fish under the water, and a machine named Sword. Jules Verne had written about that that submarine, commanded by a very heroic Lieutenant Devon. The pirate leader was someone named, Ker Karraje, which reminded me of my own name, well at least a little bit, but I never lived in a cavern, or traveled under the ocean, or took people as prisoners. No, back then I had not taken anyone as a prisoner. Then I never thought I ever would.

  I sat holding my conservation slate, with the story displayed, and I wondered what I was to learn. Then part of the story jumped out. A bigger submarine rams the smaller one, and a bunch of people died. “Could the Marathon be about to ram something? Or get rammed by something?” I pondered that as I reread the story again. The ending of the story troubled me greatly, and I pondered it over and over.

  In a way, Ryan, I wonder if I am like Simon Hart from that novel. Oh well, those kinds of musings are not telling my story.

  Yet, somehow, I was convinced that it was not just Facing the Flag which had a lesson, it must be something in the combined works which we were assigned to read. So, I considered again, the Nautilus and its Captain Nemo, but that did not clear up anything, except that submarines were an early kind of ship which traveled in a hostile environment. And what more hostile environment could there be than the desolation of space though which the Marathon made its trek?

  We also read a book about some character named Tom Swift, by Victor Appleton. When I check the historical records, that author seemed to have written for something like eighty years, but there were confusing accounts. Was it one author, a single man, or a man and his son? It was unclear. Victor Appleton II wrote some of those books. There was also one apocryphal mention that the entire corpus of Victor Appleton was done by ghosts, but I dismissed that as folklore and mythology. Much of the historical record before the Great Event is a mess with gaping holes, and so many contradictions, it is hard to know what was happening. I did recognize that all the novels we were assigned to read were originally written within about a two-hundred-year period. The religious texts we studied were far older, some claiming to be two to three thousand years old. Yet, even in them I found strange themes and wondered why we were instructed to read books like Enoch where there were angels battling with demons. Perhaps, I told myself, it was all to prepare us for any eventuality, as Mister Fisher had stated. Yet, that seemed too nebulous, and I wanted a tighter and better answer.

  So, I looked back to the water theme which was in a number of the novels. Like the HMS Sword, and Nautilus, Tom Swift’s submarine had bizarre and unworkable technology. I remembered I was not reading real engineering manuals, but novels. In that story, the Advance was the name of one submarine, and it was involved in some contest between teams, over money, and a search for treasure lost at the bottom of the ocean. I never did look up the values of those ancient currencies, as I did not think that obsolete economic system had any lesson to teach, but there in the novel was another submarine, the Wonder.

  I thought about those novels a lot. I pondered them while doing the physical training. We had developed a running path around the perimeter of Raven Academy which wound through the trees, and in part was next to the wooden fence. I ran that path so much, twice a day, each and every day, that I did not think about where to put my feet. I just ran, but my mind thought, wondered, pondered, and speculated on all the readings. I did not ruminate on the novels quite as much while doing the callisthenic drills, as I had to count off my repetitions. Although, there were a few times I lost count because of some theory zipping into my mind and messed up by numbers.

  Tom Swift’s Advance was a submarine with a triple-layered hull, which made me think about how the Marathon has the habitats, like Kansas, each of which was surrounded by its own shell. That shell was far more than a triple-layer. At that time, the closest I had come to being in the shell was when Mister Fisher and I had walked through that underground garage. Nonetheless, I knew the shell of each habitat had corridors, compartments, rooms, hangers, and all manner of utilities and such.

  Real life interrupted one of my ponderings. I was running along during physical training, thinking about submarines. Marie was bounding along next to me. Oh, how that dog loved to run! I was something like a kilometer or two along the pathway on the sky tube side of Raven Academy’s grounds. I came around a tree-lined corner, just lost in my own thoughts, and nearly fell over Jane. She was just sitting in the roadway weeping.

  “Jane, have you injured your ankle or something?” I asked. Twisted ankles were not uncommon as the pesky gophers in the area made holes in our trail.

  “No,” she snapped at me and wiped her eyes quickly. She stood up and started to head off.

  “Please wait!” I implored. I had rarely seen Jane cry, and I could tell something was bothering her. “What has happened?”

  “You really do not know?” She glared at me, nearly with hostility. But then her look changed to bewilderment. “I guess you are pretty dense, everyone says so. Obtuse, in fact” Marie had positioned herself next to Jane.

  “Hey, I am…” I stopped myself. Quarreling with Jane was not something I wanted to do, and it would only push her away. I had seen what quarreling could do when others had had what they called spats. Some students would not talk to each other for days, and a few had even taken swings at one another. “Jane, I can be dense and miss stuff, so what am I missing?”

  “Last night, Pilliroog and Bartlet tried to go home,” she sobbed a bit, but then steeled herself.

  “When will they be back?”

  She walked over and knocked on the side of my head, “Hello, dense in there. I said they tried to go home. Tried. When they got to the big gates, that security automacube stopped them. Their wristwatches had automatically alerted that red machine.”

  “So, what exactly happened?”

  “Bartlet just wanted to see her family in person, and Pilliroog supported her, as he always does.”

  I was confused. “What? Did they go?”

  “No, they did not go. The security automacube informed them that if they left they would not ever be allowed any kind of additional training, in any field. Nor could they return here. And, their families would lose educational opportunities for all their brothers and sisters. Our being in the militia is a high priority, and families are punished if we leave.”

  I just blurted out my first thought, “That does sound fair, since this is such a special opportunity for us.”

  “Special opportunity? Ugh!” Jane’s eyes blazed at me. “We are prisoners here, you block-head of permalloy! My father is a policeman, and this is a violation of our rights as habitat dwellers. How can they threaten to punish our families? Just because we do not want to do this militia training? That is coercion and blackmail!”

  “Sorry. I did not think it through,” I said. I reached over and carefully touched her shoulder. She slumped up against me. Marie cuddled in and rubbed our legs.

  “Kalju, what have we gotten into?” She asked me as I held her. “What is this place?”

  I did not have an answer then, so I just hugged her for a while. Finally, I said, “I guess we will learn, as we go through this together.” It was a lame and feeble attempt, but it was the best I could offer.

  “Thanks, Mister Dense. Do not tell anyone I said anything to you. Bartlet came back late, and Pilliroog will not share with anyone.”

  “I understand.” I did not really understand then at all. So, I returned to my run. Marie stayed with Jane.

  Instead of thinking about going home, or what had supposedly happened to Bartlet and Pilliroog, I kept pondering submarines. I guess, I was retreating into
my denseness and did not want to consider all the implications which swirled around Jane’s revelations. So, I thought again about submarines like the Sword. And the other things in those books. The Tom Swift book had a battle, of sorts, between the submarine and other watercraft, or vessels, even with hints of ramming. The Advance had an engine failure, which reminded me of some of the other student’s theories about the militia being ready for an emergency in the Marathon’s main drive. Kulm was the primary proponent of that idea, but others supported it at the time. It did make sense to me, on one level, but it seemed to not cover all the topics. In that novel, they got captured by something called a battleship, which was a much bigger ship, but could only be on the water’s surface. After a daring escape, they were off hunting again for more money stuff, a lost treasure. The people before the Great Event sure were driven to chase after their financial worries. But maybe I am not seeing clearly how they lived before the Earth was traumatized so badly.

  I maybe should have paid more attention to what Jane had said. However, she was right. Back then I was a very dense person.

  So yes, that novel’s description of an engine mishap made me reconsider again about Kulm’s idea that the Marathon had suffered an engineering failure for which we were all in preparation. But if that was the case, I would have thought I would have been allowed to go to engineering school, rather than being inducted into the militia. It was a very confusing time, and I just did not see a consistent theme which ran though all those novels. Not then, anyway.

  One other thing in those novels was weapons. There were a lot of weapons in almost every novel we read. Some of the weapons were nonsense, but others were primitive versions of what we actually had. At Raven Academy, we learned about various weapons as the months went by in my training. Oh, I had learned about the spear, that lesson was marked on my body and in my mind, permanently. But we also worked with many other weapons.

  Mister Fisher taught us about all sorts of hand-powered weapons.

  Bartlet asked him why we needed hand weapons, while he instructed us on the use of an atlatl. He had just showed us how to fit our spears into the half-tube surface of the atlatl. It was made from a flexible material fabricated somewhere else. I liked it, as that half-shaft with its cup at the end really let me toss the spear further and with more force. By that point, I had tied a thin cord to the end of my spear and I attached the other end to my belt. It was much easier to recover the spear that way. But Bartlet objected.

  “Mister Fisher? Why are we using all these primitive weapons? I mean we hunt fish, and turkeys, and rabbits. Why not use an automacube to acquire food? A security model could easily shoot down even the elk or other large game in the forest. And a vodnee in the water would simple harvest the fish. It would be like the agricultural automacubes that tend the fields for crops.” Her blonde hair blew a bit in the wind as she stood there holding her own spear and atlatl.

  “Bartlet, that is a good question,” he responded.

  I thought he would reflect it back and ask her why she thought we trained with those weapons, but he surprised me. I often thought I could anticipate his answers, but then he would just say something unexpected.

  “An automacube is a fine piece of machinery. It is the backbone of the Colony Ship Marathon’s Machine Maintenance programs. Automacubes also are essential in many other areas—such as microorganism rotations—and as you pointed out, in growing and harvesting crops. I am having you train with hand-powered weapons because there might come a time when you do not have access to automacubes. Take for example your wristwatches. You can summon up information on them, or access your textbooks, and assignments. They are an important tool. But could you clean a tench or pike with one? Of course not. You need a good blade, preferably a fillet knife to properly clean a fish. Right Jane?” He looked at Jane.

  Jane, with her medium complexion, light brown, curly hair, and almost honey-colored brown eyes just looked back with a puzzled expression.

  “Jane, no false modesty. We all know you are the most efficient cleaner of fish here. Would you want to clean a large tench with only your wristwatch?” Mister Fisher’s voice was completely serious, and I too thought Jane was an expert when it came to cutting things apart.

  “No sir. Although someone could call up an instructional recording on how to clean that particular fish should the need arise,” Jane responded. “Or smash the wristwatch apart and use the shards as a substitute knife.”

  “Good observations! Although I do not suggest smashing the wristwatch,” Mister Fisher replied. “But if the watch was used to display a teaching lesson, the student would still need some kind of hand-tool to do it, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But why not do as Bartlet suggested?” Pilliroog asked. He often liked to take Bartlet’s side on arguments and discussions, even when I knew he thought a different way when she was not around. “Just have the automacube catch the fish, clean the fish, cook the fish, and serve it to us. Would that not be the most efficient manner to gain a fish dinner?”

  Mister Fisher gave a wide smile. “Is efficiency the goal of all of life? What do you think Bartlet? Should humans just sit back and let our machines be our slaves and serve our every need?”

  And here I knew we were heading into another discussion. But Mister Fisher had stated that there might come a time when we would not have access to automacubes. So, I interjected to stop the tangential direction the class was taking.

  “Excuse me, Mister Fisher? You said there might be a time when we would not have access to an automacube. Does that mean there is a risk we would be captured by some criminal? And then be cut off from summoning help or assistance?” I was thinking of the theories about kidnappers and pirates.

  “Kalju asks if there is a risk of criminals?” Mister Fisher replied. “Class, has there ever been a society that was free of rule breakers or people who chose violence?”

  Several others voiced their comments at the same time, affirming that every society had criminals and law breakers.

  Bartlet raised her voice above the crowd. For a petite girl, she sure could command attention with her words. “But how likely is it to be in a situation where there are no automacubes, or where there is not a structure of society? All our habitats are integrated and codependent. Unless, as Kalju suggested, some criminal did lock someone away, what are the chances of a being without access to the Marathon’s multiple systems?”

  Mister Fisher tapped his fingers on his lectern. “What chances indeed? What chances were there for the old nation-states of the world when the 90 Hour War started? Or, backup historically, just a bit before that. Just before the Great Event, what did people think about the risk of losing nearly all food?”

  “Are you saying there is an impending famine?” Carol asked.

  Mister Fisher subtly shook his head. “Bartley asked about likelihoods. I am looking to history. Shall we consider our own Colony Ship Marathon? On August 31, 2070, old calendar, when Colony Ship Two, the Marathon was launched, what did the world say of our likelihood for success?” Mister Fisher paused and looked from student to student.

  Timofei and Tudeng answered at almost the same moment.

  “There was a great debate, and no consensus,” Timofei stated.

  “Scholars were divided on their predictions for success,” Tudeng said.

  “And now we are sixty years into our flight. Consider, our wonderful habitat, Kansas. Here we have an overabundance of food. Sure, we are second to Bread in our food exports to other habitats, but what would happen if, hypothetically, Kansas or Bread had a severe crop failure?” Mister Fisher asked. “Those people before the Great Event thought their tinkering with the genetics of food would produce bumper crops, on marginal land. They were correct for a time, but we all know what happened. What was the likelihood of that, from those people’s perspective?”

  Carol pressed him. “So, there is a present danger of some famine or crop failure?”

  “Like
Kalju and his criminals, there is always a danger,” Mister Fisher answered. “Just consider, if Bread were to have a crop failure, would Kansas be able to meet all the needs for the other seven habitats?”

  Students were busy calculating crop yields and production potentials in their minds, and began giving off answers. But I had an illuminating thought.

  “Not without the automacubes!” I said. It came out more loudly than I expected.

  “And there is your answer,” Mister Fisher spoke over everyone else who was contributing. “And that gets us back to Bartlet’s original question. She asked why we are learning about what she called primitive weapons. The answer is so we are prepared and not reliant on only one method. The Great Event happened because of many factors, but the food blight was a huge contributor, and I never want any of you to be so crippled by your dependence on technology that you cannot face whatever events come in your life.”

  Several more comments were made, but eventually Mister Fisher ended by saying, “I believe we have chased this white rabbit down its hole long enough. Back to mastery of the atlatl. Your throwing arm together with the atlatl acts as a powerful increasing lever. You will find that by holding it….”