Star Kitten

by Purple Hazel

  But it didn’t take long for things to degenerate….

  Planets could simply discard all their dangerous male criminals and traitors instead of incarcerating them on their own planets. It was less expensive than prisons that was for sure! And it was easier on every planet’s society to simply part with its malcontents and sociopaths, rather than to face the collective guilt of failing to reform them; then endure the consequences of releasing prisoners back into society where they might continue their criminal behavior. Even more convenient was not having to resolve the social ills of their societies which led to crime and discontent in the first place.

  Oh, and it was quite lucrative too, as the mining operation yielded more and more extracted mineral ores, gemstones, silver, and even industrial diamonds year after year. The Earthmen simply took a page from their barbaric history and used the concept of the prison farm to make the whole operation profitable: use forced labor to produce a good or product (or extract a raw material) then take a portion of the revenue to pay for housing and food for the laborers, staff, and machinery or tools required. Every dollar after that, was pure profit for all the six planets to split. Economies in the galaxy grew and quality of life (at least for the wealthy classes on the home planets) blossomed. As the earthmen put it every galactic year at the Convention, “this really is a win-win scenario.”

  Only the Slartigifijian elders reserved judgment on that lofty description of Rijel 12. But then again, even Slartigifij started shipping criminals to Rijel 12 after a few Earth years too…. and delighted in their tidy share of the profits (as did everyone else in the galaxy)! It was just too easy to fall in with the whole scheme.

  At first, the sentences were reasonable, spanning three to twenty years, with only really violent offenders sentenced there for life. The planet itself was of course completely barren and devoid of life, covered on the surface by global deserts, volcanic mountains, and extremely forbidding temperatures during the day. At night, temperatures often plunged into the teens, but during the day it could get over 150 degrees Fahrenheit. It was certainly unrealistic to live on the surface, but far underground the planet possessed massive caverns that extended for miles and miles in every direction.

  On Rijel 12 there was just enough atmosphere to create a breathable oxygen for most creatures, but the Interplanetary Authority chose to expand the already existing system for manufacturing purer oxygen for the caverns below so that workers could maintain better health when engaged in heavy physical exertion. The planet’s oxygen was too thin for breathing and could lead to light-headedness and fatigue during prolonged exposure. Therefore, the mining operation was sealed off from the surface and the oxygen production system could be added onto in phases as the mine expanded. Blowers moved the fresher less toxic manufactured air around the caverns and tunnels to keep the workers healthier and more alert (initially anyway).

  The Rijel 12 planet interior had hundreds of underground glaciers located miles below the rocky barren surface and protected from the incredibly hot sun. Subterranean aquifers closer to the surface provided water to the new inhabitants, but it had to be filtered to be completely potable. The original miners, years before, didn’t actually drink the water from the aquifers. They imported purified water from nearby planets; and it was very expensive to do so. However, Scientists believed the water on Rijel 12 could eventually be made potable for prisoners to drink. Earthmen devised an elaborate filtration system that extracted the water into great reservoirs then filtered it into drinking water at literally hundreds of water stations throughout the mining network.

  Technically it was perfectly fine to drink; but not surprisingly the Human engineers designed a system that needed to be maintained at a rather hefty cost—a cost that later less ethical prison operations managers didn’t exactly prefer to continue paying. The systems deteriorated over time and needed repair. Mine Operators looked the other way, and gradually prisoners suffered from consuming bad drinking water. Yet they had no choice….

  Besides, these prison operations managers - they were making money for their superiors. Profitability was being reviewed constantly, and no one wanted to speak out about the deteriorating conditions for prisoners. Better water could be imported for the guards and managers, after all. So why worry about the hapless prisoners being slowly poisoned below. More prisoners arrived all the time, to replace the ill and dying. It just didn’t really matter that much to the cynical, profit-driven mining operators.

  In only a few earth years, a prison complex was constructed a mile below the treacherous planet surface, and then… it was expanded over the decades to where it housed thousands of prisoners in barracks in the caverns further below. Earth ships arrived regularly; and construction workers (in the early years) worked feverishly to construct more barracks below ground.

  New barracks were built by construction workers to house the ever-expanding prison labor supply. When a new cavern was opened up, these laborers would build a prefabricated barracks and live in it while they built the infrastructure around it. The air system would be connected to new parts of the mine, and new water filtration systems would be installed then tapped into the underground aquifers. When each new section was all complete, the construction workers would leave; and then the barracks they lived in would be occupied by new prisoners sent there to work the newly opened section of the mine.

  However, these barracks would soon become overcrowded as more and more prisoners would be sent to work there; and over the years they became dilapidated or even collapsed from lack of materials to repair them. As the decades passed, the prisoners eventually resorted to just carving out homes inside caves. Worse than that, maintenance which would have been necessary on the air and water filtration systems within a few years would never get scheduled. The mining operators just didn’t care and workers suffered year after year because of the neglect.

  Additional mineral deposits were discovered. Veins of gemstones were found, too! It just seemed the opportunities for wealth being extracted from Rijel 12 were boundless; and this only served to fuel the machine even more. Mine expansion required additional labor; and every planet was soon being urged to keep sending more convicts. It simply became all too easy for abuses to occur within such a system as this. New prisoners being brought in meant even more barracks and even more supplies. Expanding the mines required more equipment, which led to more expenses and even more aggressive production goals. This would have been the case for any rapidly growing labor-intensive industry, yes. But in the case of New Australia Planetary Prison, the difference was that labor was essentially free.

  What’s more; this free labor was quite plentiful. Not surprisingly, things eventually just got overlooked, neglected, and downright ignored. Old barracks didn’t get repaired or maintained and eventually collapsed. Water filtration systems needed maintenance that never happened. The air system ducts needed servicing which never occurred.

  Greed replaced compassion or even any semblance of justice; and everyone gave in just a little, if not completely. The greater good became nothing more than just the greater profit motive, and from bottom to top, no one wanted to admit it. When the existing veins of minerals were expanded and dug out further; even more workers were needed to fill all the workload; as well as replacing the dying and ruined laborers below Rijel 12’s forbidding surface.

  New Australia Planetary Prison became a death sentence to most all sent there, and within fifty earth years, few expected to ever return when sentenced to work there in the mines.

  Of course they had to be fed too; and a network of food depots was devised by the Engineers. Ten, then twenty, then hundreds of these depots sprang up within this vast network which coursed through the planet’s caverns. Food Depots were located near worksites and barracks; and as worksites and mineral veins developed further, those food depots had to be expanded. When new ore discoveries were found, MORE food depots had to be constructed. And the original domed food warehouse on the planet surface was expan
ded with phase after phase of additions until it was the size of a small city. But the quality of food was quite different for the guards and administrators than it was for the poor souls slaving away in the mines.

  Prisoner processing and assignment to work details were handled below the surface. Rijel 12’s original mining operation was established on the site of a massive canyon formed from the collapse of an ancient subterranean cavern. A surface facility was built next to the canyon, then the canyon was eventually converted into a massive loading bay for supply ships, using a landing pad lift that elevated up to the surface to receive arriving spacecraft. Once landed, the elevator lift descended several hundred feet into the canyon below to be processed. Then a retractable roof closed over the canyon to seal it off from the forbidding elements of Rijel 12.

  New prisoners would be unloaded and assigned to some part of the mines that required more workers (randomly at first, then gradually based on species). There were always new job openings, and there were always more prisoner ships landing. When transport ships were completely emptied of prisoners, the other side of the subterranean bay would open, and massive transport vehicles would haul in loads of mineral ore, and eventually precious gems too, to be loaded onto the emptied craft. Upon completion, the retractable roof would open, the elevator platform would ascend back to the surface, and the craft could take off once again.

  By the fiftieth Earth year of operation, there was a freighter landing every few days; and usually there was another in orbit around Rijel 12 waiting their turn to land and offload new prisoners!

  Pilots and crew were never allowed to leave their ships; and most didn’t wish to. This was a prison after all, and security was nearly air tight at all times. But what these pilots and crew DID see when they landed? It was enough to send the message back to their home planets that this was a truly hellish place. They didn’t even need to see what was going on below. The construction workers finishing their projects below could shed even more light on the realities of New Australia Planetary Prison, but even they didn’t care—not about inmates in a prison. They just wanted to leave Rijel 12 and get back home as quickly as possible.

  With all the financing of the Interplanetary Authority, those enterprising Earthmen were brutally efficient in devising a diabolical prison system that continued to feed the hellish mining operation; and production goal-setting became increasingly aggressive as the years passed. Government officials began to “see dollar signs” as the Earthmen called it. Profitability increased and the operation was a success within only a few galactic years.

  Everyone was thrilled with the results.

  Well, most everyone was, anyway: Prisoners in the early years arriving on Rijel 12 were immediately pressed into service working in the mines until they completed their sentences; and just like the Earthmen had promised, these prisoners who’d completed paying their debt to society—those who’d survived to complete serving their sentences that is—were able to crawl or limp onto freighters and eventually returned to their home planets. They’d be aged and broken down by then, but at least they could finally go home (go home and die at a very young age and in terribly poor health that is). It was hard to feel sorry for them… after all they’d most certainly deserved to be sent there. Most law-abiding citizens could rationalize it that way. But it was nevertheless shameful treating other intelligent beings in such a manner. And it was a reflection on the societies themselves who allowed it to go on like that.

  But it got even worse. Eventually the planets even stopped going back to get their prisoners. It became an embarrassment really… seeing a released prisoner returned to their societies all haggard and crippled. Withered and squinting from daylight which they hadn’t seen in many years; they’d return to their home planets almost unrecognizable to their families and loved ones.

  The Slartigifijians were the first of the seven planets to stop sending prisoners to New Australia Planetary Prison, protesting that conditions there would have to improve before they’d resume. After nine earth years, they ceased transports of criminals completely; but not surprisingly they left thousands behind to finish out their miserable lives; and just chose to forget about the whole nasty social experiment.

  Pumalar threatened to do the same, but eventually relented. Pumalars were very strong and capable of bearing up to the rigors of the workload. And the Pumalar government couldn’t bear to miss out on their share of the profits from the mine either. The other planets, by way of comparison, just kept right on going. They all just began seeing it the way Earthmen had portrayed it in the first place.

  “Violent criminals and repeat offenders need to be removed from a society for the greater good of their communities; and once they’ve repaid their debt to society, only then may they return to their home planets,” is how the Earthmen put it each galactic year at the Convention. Yet this commitment to “reforming” criminals gradually faded into a distant memory when governments felt the backlash of social revulsion over the results of even a three year sentence working in subterranean mines on a hellish planet light years away. Frankly it was the lure of incredible wealth and the expansion of their planetary economies that caused them to temper their protests a bit.

  Gradually they stopped protesting completely.

  Most just grew to look at it the same way as the Earthmen. At the galactic conventions, the Earth delegation would delight in reporting the profitability of the mines; and exaggerate the collateral effects on societies back on home planets who had seen a vast improvement in social order: “We’re shipping out mineral ore, and shipping in our society’s bad eggs to work the mines. It’s still a win-win!”

  But this was indeed a farce—an illusion portrayed by greedy politicians enjoying excellent approval ratings at home and (as they saw it) happier law-abiding workers from the lower classes on their home planets. The wealthy elite classes loved the results, even if the lower working classes saw no direct benefit. No one at the top wanted to face the truth of what they were truly doing. Just like the Slartigifijians warned so many years before, such poor application of morality and ethics could and most certainly would lead to oppression and abuse of those who were powerless.

  Crime didn’t stop, nor did crime rates even fall. Beings on all planets still murdered, stole, raped, or spoke out against the government. Yet it didn’t matter. It only fed the meat grinder with fresh prison labor for “New Australia Planetary Prison.” The justice systems needn’t worry about prisoner reform or incarceration at all any more. Murder another being on your planet, and you got sent away for life. That made perfect sense at first. But eventually, even repeat-offending burglars were being dragged onto transport vessels headed for Rijel 12 to serve “minor sentences”. Within fifty Earth years even they would never return. No one went back to get them.

  Initially, just like any poorly thought-out social experiment, the “stated” intent turned out to be unachievable. From the very start, the promise was to respect the concept of a set prison sentence and to return the convict to society upon its completion. Greed got in the way of that. But so did the fear of political repercussions at home when freed prisoners returned to tell of the conditions at New Australia Planetary Prison. Earth and Zorgolong were the first two planets to stop returning for their prisoners. Schpleefti actually never did in the first place. In their world a Schpleeftian who’d severely broken the law was banished from their community anyway. For them it was just plain common sense. Threaten the peace and tranquility of society, and you lose the privilege of living within it.

  The Pumalars followed suit eventually as well. Given time, they began to see how it fit in with the philosophy of their culture: removing the capability of repeating the crime (severing a hand, castrating the testicles, or removing a tongue), meant that the example was set for all those tempted to duplicate the act. But this was even easier! Just send them away to Rijel 12, and the problem was still solved.

  For Slartigifijians it was different though. They simply
couldn’t handle the conditions in New Australia and perished within a few years. However, not all of them died. Their intelligence became highly valuable to the other prisoners and some lived on to serve vital roles in prison society. Besides, Slartifigians had much longer life-spans than humans. This became very important later on, for the sake of the other prisoners’ survival.

  The hard life of mining killed off thousands of prisoners every year, and there was really no predictable pattern to it. Stronger prisoners died in the mines just as easily as weaker prisoners. Determination to survive, or resentment at having been sent to this subterranean hell could most certainly sustain a being for a while, but accidents were quite common. Death could come easily; and at most any time. The prison administration simply didn’t care. In another galactic month (about 129 days), there’d be another ship arriving from Earth or one of the other planets with more prisoners, anyway.

  It all deteriorated into a matter of brutal survival for the desperate imprisoned beings on Rijel 12.

  After half an earth century of dumping hapless male prisoners on the planet, the place had become a death sentence and everyone knew it. Inmates would tell newly arrived prisoners of this, and even their own guards communicated the same message. As one infamously cruel guard used to put it to arriving prisoners as they were processed in the receiving bay, “You have been sent here to die; and that is likely what you’ll do. Accept it, and your miserable existence here may last for quite a while. Who knows? You may die tomorrow. We don’t know; and we don’t care either. Work… and you eat. Eat and you live. That’s all you need to know for now….”

  And yet fifty Earth years later—when faced with such an impossible existence—amazingly some beings learned how to survive. They adapted and they overcame by creating a society of their own below the planet surface. Leaders arose, structure developed, and the situation finally stabilized (partly driven by necessity, and partly due to the sheer determination of desperate intelligent beings seeking to exist, no matter what the circumstances). They figured out ways to live on….