by P H Campbell
"No, I killed them," G'tham insisted.
"I don't know exactly what happened," Seren admitted. "But I do know that's not something you actually did. And I know you know that."
"You can't know anything like that," G'tham insisted.
"My planet is a planet full of stable Human mutations," Seren told him. "My ancestors almost died out due to a radiation surge that pretty much wiped out most of the surface life – including a few hundred thousand colonists. Radiation does strange things to DNA. It did to ours. I know when people are telling the truth, and when they're lying. It's one of my talents that makes me a good negotiator. When you said you killed them, you were lying."
G'tham was silent for a moment, then asked, "I didn't ask for this. What do I owe you?"
"That's up to you," Seren replied.
"You own me, now, or at least my labors," G'tham told her.
"Yeah, well the last slave I had I freed, and he's still around to remind me of that, so I figure we'll skip the slave part and just go with the free part," Seren told him. "If it happens that some day I need a favor, I'd like a little consideration in that department. But otherwise, you're your own man. Do with your life what you want to do. And don't hurt anyone in the process, if you can help it."
With a troubled expression, G'tham nodded, then said, "Safe journey, Seren."
It was with a great sense of relief that the delegation finally left UGW 1182-F.
"I must admit, I'm happy to be going back to the UGW, even if it is to one of our rehabilitation facilities," Dr. Treah mentioned.
"Call me picky, but I don't like the idea of a personality wipe and memory implant as a method of penal reform," Cinder remarked.
"We've never had an escape attempt, nor riots, nor any of the other problems inherent in such institutions in the past, and outside of UGW influence," Dr. Treah replied.
"This is an old argument between your people, I'm guessing," Seren remarked.
"I'd be pretty pissed about being mind-wiped," Torian agreed, "but, I'm not exactly on the side of the Shade."
"So, what will your role be in our group now?" Dr. Treah asked the Methman. "Slavery is illegal in the UGW."
"She can run off if she chooses," Seren shrugged. "I'm betting she doesn't."
"I owe Seren," Torian agreed. "I agreed to the terms. Slavery happens everywhere, even in the UGW, Doc. It's just that most "slaves" aren't openly bought and sold. They sell themselves a piece here and a piece there, thinking by doing that themselves voluntarily, they're still "free". It still amounts to slavery.
"Besides," she added with a wicked grin, "the law in the UGW says that slavery is buying another person and forcibly confining them for labor or other work. I'm freer "sold" to Seren than I ever was in that prison, and a thousand times freer than I'd be in the UGW."
"The UGW would welcome you," Dr. Treah pointed out.
"Except I'm still a convicted felon and murderer," Torian pointed out. "That closes a lot of doors. And you folks have way too many Methonians for my comfort level. If you grew up being held captive by Methonians all your life, for hundreds of generations, you'd be a lot less happy to be rubbing shoulders with them, even if you looked mostly like they do."
"Who did you kill?" Koreen wondered, having walked in on the conversation as Torian began to speak.
"Oh, a low-life contract breaker," Torian waved it off. "And he attacked me for calling him out on it officially."
"I'm a little hazy 'bout how th' Shade does things," Koreen admitted. "What was s'pposed ta happen and what did happen?"
"That is a very cute accent you have," Torian grinned. "Normally, I don't enjoy talking about it, because I don't come across as being all even tempered and Methonian about what I did. But being part Human, I have a temper and being part Methonian, I can do a lot of unintentional damage when I get pissed."
"So, he pissed you off?" Koreen asked.
"He broke a contract and paid a friend to delete the official copy," Torian shrugged. "I did some digging and found out that this friend would only delete contracts between Shade and Fusions. He's some high mucky-muck in the Shade, but not on the council.
"I complained, but since they deleted the official contract, there was no proof I'd ever had a contract. I had my copy, sure, but there was no record of it in the official files. So it was null and void and the other guy walked off with a shit-ton of credits that belonged to me."
"What was the contract for?" Seren asked.
"The usual," Torian shrugged again, her indifference for her acts glaringly obvious. "Jobs for credits to pay off the orbital space fees for the habitat and customs fees on our Seeder ship. That one contract was worth a month of fees for both. I did a ton of work, and made him a ton of credits. So, it was a lot of credits I was owed. And when he went back on the contract, and then rubbed it in, well, let's just say I took the smile off his face – in a much more literal fashion than most people do it."
So saying, she held up her right hand, and displayed her claws.
They looked very, very sharp.
"I'm not proud of it, but as far as I'm concerned, the cheating, little fucker deserved it," Torian concluded.
"I can see why you're not happy with the Shade," Koreen nodded.
"If they'd stick to their word, and not stand in our way so fucking much, we'd be fine with them," Torian remarked. "The people are generally good and decent, in their own ways. It's just that the council needs a more even-handed approach. I get it that the Shade started off as basically a bunch of crooks and con artists, but they're a government now, and need to grow the fuck up and stop playing cops and robbers."
"We don't have a lot of organization to our world," Serena admitted. "But we don't cheat anyone. So at least that's something you won't have to worry about."
"Play straight with me, I play straight with you," Torian nodded. "That'd be a welcome relief for pretty much every Fusion I've ever met."
Cinder realized that the Shade wasn't looking good in anyone's eyes at the moment. However, all the talk about fairness and being honest and dealing straight with others kept her from trying to sugar-coat her people. She came from the underbelly of the UGW, when the Shade had once been relegated to many widely scattered Starvilles, and a few very under-developed planets in one star system. She'd done worse than Torian had done in her life, and she reaped the rewards for it because she knew how to make a contract. The Fusions didn't have the benefit of a negotiator who could foresee all the variables and account for them with language clear enough to cover the things that might be exploited. At least, that's how the current situation evolved.
Given the UGW mindset, the treaty had been ridiculously explicit, and yet still omitted a lot of things it should have covered using much more specific clauses.
Importing nearly a billion people, with most of them still in stasis even after ten years, without making sure the infrastructure could be constructed quickly, had been a huge oversight on their parts. And that issue persisted despite their best efforts. The Colony Ship had the resources to accomplish that, but the Council had argued endlessly about whom to use it for first and who got what from it, with each planet in the Shade Alliance claiming they had exclusive rights to first use.
There was a reason Cinder wasn't on the council anymore. That endless bickering and unfairness was the reason. It didn't help that the UGW was undermining the Shade's efforts at every turn, either.
As for Seren, she was saying tight-lipped about what she had planned. She had a notion of what the terms of the negotiations would probably be, but she was still looking at both sides, mostly because she needed that information to refine her end-game. So she kept it to herself. She didn't even talk it over with Sasha, nor with any of the other delegates.
The trip to UGC 0063-B, one of several planets dedicated to the rehabilitation of UGW prisoners, would take about two weeks standard. It wasn't exactly next door to the Shade Alliance territories. During that time, the delegates spent their time e
ngaged in their own interests. Gliff spent most of his time in his room, absorbing galactic history and trying to learn English. He was the least social of the group.
But the others generally enjoyed one another's company, and even if long-term relationships hadn't been forged between all of them – their primary source of connection was Seren – they found that they had a lot in common while talking to the others.
Majel and Walentia would often sit and talk about Seren's earlier life. Since Walentia had dumped her newborn daughter Seren on the doorstep of a Borderlandian Orphanage to hide her from the Magentian Council, then went into hiding herself, she had a deep and abiding interest in any anecdotes Majel might share.
And Majel loved to talk.
Koreen and Markov were usually with their daughter, often discussing family plans, but when the baby was sleeping, they mixed and mingle while the nanny-bot watched over her. Markov recognized that the future was coming for the Colonists no matter what they did, so did his best to stay on top of what was going on.
Morlendrus hung out with Seren, or the Twins. He was curious about their culture, and any racial issues he'd had were long since settled by his continued association with Koreen. He doubted that he'd have become more racially tolerant, if not racially embracing, had he not been more or less forced into associating with Koreen for as long as he had. He doubted they'd ever become "friends", but he was more than comfortable calling her an "associate".
Koreen was much the same way, mostly because Morlendrus kept his distance. She was a barometer of how close a relationship was. If someone was distant to her, she'd be distant to them. If someone opened up to her, she'd open up to them. Any dislike of other races never seemed to manifest in her. She really enjoyed the company of the Twins, since they meshed with her own rebellious nature.
Sasha was enjoying her time away from the stresses that had filled her life from the moment The Worlders had revived her from her stasis pod. She found the twins delightful, however thought both Cinder and Dr. Treah were a bit too distant for comfort.
But it was Torian, the newest of the group, who openly brought up what most everyone wanted to know regarding the least forthcoming of the group.
Seren.
"So, what's your back-story, Seren?" Torian asked. "From the others, I've heard bits and pieces of a lot of strange things about your planet, and you. But I don't know what to think."
"You'll see how things are when we get back," Seren shrugged. "What happened in the past helped shape the present, but it's still stuff that isn't happening anymore."
"I get that," Torian agreed. "But what about you? You're young, probably younger than these two." She twitched a claw-tipped thumb toward the Twins. "But you don't act young. You act, old. Like, older than Cinder old. Dr. Treah's the same way. Old-acting, but young looking."
"I heard an English saying once," Seren explained in reply, "It's not the age that counts, it's the experience. I've got a lot more experience in life than most people my age have. Plus, people tended to grow up fast in the Borderlands."
"That's a no shit item," Majel agreed, and Ronik nodded.
"But don't anymore?" Torian persisted.
"No, not since the war ended on the Day of the Southern Sunrise," Ronik shook his head.
"That's the day Seren sent the magic away," Majel agreed, her English heavily accented, but still understandable. "Life made a big change for the better that day."
"Magic?" Torian echoed.
Seren noticed that Dr. Treah's attention became laser focused. She wondered why. Usually, discussing something as improbable as magic would make someone dismissive of it.
"Our world had magic in it," Walentia agreed. "I once could use magic, myself. Not all Magentians could. Our way of life needed magic to work. Seren knew this, and when she sent the magic away, she managed to quickly replaced it with what the Electrians use. They had no magic."
"How old were you?" Torian wondered.
"Ugh, more math," Seren had to calculate, then said, "I was fourteen, so about seventeen or eighteen standard, I think. That was not quite six years ago, or call it about eight standard. I'm twenty five standard now, or about nineteen in my years, more or less."
"I get the feeling there's a lot more to that story than what you folks just told us," Torian remarked. "And it doesn't say much about your personal past," she added to Seren.
"Discussing one's past isn't a great negotiation strategy," Seren remarked. "We each bring our own skills to the table. It gets more complicated if everyone knows what those skills are."
"Can you make someone do something they don't want to do?" Torian asked.
"Well, sure," Seren nodded. "It's called persuasion."
There was a round of chuckles over that statement.
"No, I mean like magical stuff," Torian persisted, clarifying her inquiry.
"Oh, you mean like making people suddenly go to sleep, or living forever, or making domes the size of cities," Seren remarked, then shook her head and said, "No, not anymore."
The implications of what Seren had just said did not escape anyone's notice.
"Wait… Anymore?" Cinder interjected. "What do you mean, "anymore"?"
"I can give you a history lesson," Seren suggested.
"Enlighten us," Cinder agreed, and Torian nodded. Even Dr. Treah seemed unusually interested in the discussion.
"Okay, well, about fourteen thousand standard years ago, the Wethersfield left Mars, after picking up colonists from Earth on a sub-light-speed centuries-long journey to the stars," Seren told them.
"They arrived some twelve hundred or something years later, but something went wrong, and while some things went right, the ship didn't land where it was supposed to, and instead crashed where it wasn't supposed to land. This killed most of the colonists and crew. Of the five or six thousand who survived, all but about a thousand of them were removed from their stasis chambers, and worked on getting to where they intended to land, which involved making sailing ships…"
"They were more like tracked, armored submarines with a limited ability to travel on land," Markov added.
"Markov was one of the colonists left behind when the others went to the mainland from the island where their ship crashed," Seren explained, then continued with her history lesson.
"But the colonists had a power problem and couldn't revive everyone. So they set things to regenerate power, which would take some time, and began to cross the ocean from the island to the mainland. Along the way the sea creatures my world has caught most of them and ate them.
"Those sea creatures are immense, some much larger than this ship is. Few of the colonists survived. They had planned to start with a community of about twelve thousand, but ended up beginning with under a thousand, leaving the other eight to nine hundred they didn't have the power to restore in stasis until they could go back to get them."
"And they never did," Markov mentioned.
"The colony moved inland a bit, and settled down and did pretty well for about five hundred years," Seren continued. "Then one day the sky lit up. For us, it's in a legend we called the Time of the Sky Fire on my world. On that day, an entity from another reality came into our reality, bringing with it enough ionizing radiation to wipe out most of the life on my world. The colony went from hundreds of thousands to about a hundred sick people surviving. Almost all the plants died. All the animals died, except what few pigs and chickens were in the caves at the time. Anyone not in a cave pretty much died, and even those who were in the caves didn't fare well.
"That entity barely understood what had happened, and recognized that its presence, or arrival, caused great harm, so it became part of The World, making one small change in one woman, who gave birth to the last human-looking person to draw first breath for the next ninety or a hundred centuries.
"That person was called Miralenda Gravtok," Seren explained. "She's important. And I have more in common with her than just being from the same planet.
"The entit
y created Miralenda to communicate with it," Seren went on. "She had to have started puberty for it to manifest, but once it did, Miralenda was never alone. Still she wasn't fully able to understand the entity very well. Coming from different realities as they did meant entirely different contexts for, literally, everything. The entity had as much trouble understanding her as she did it, but over the centuries, they managed to begin a dialog…"
"Wait, centuries?" Torian asked.
"The entity had properties, some that were deliberate, some that weren't," Seren replied. "One of the non-deliberate properties was that if the entity wasn't, for lack of a better word, 'unhappy' with a magic worker, the magic worker didn't age. Miralenda pretty much stopped aging at or near the end of puberty. She always looked very, very young, except for her eyes. They saw a lot."
"The death of her colony, I imagine," Cinder remarked.
"No, she was too young to remember any of that, but the aftermath of it, yes," Seren corrected her. "She grew up in what slowly became the ruins of a much larger city. Bodies were everywhere, the mummified remains of colonists cut down as they went about their lives. There were no insects or animals to disturb them. Most of them were so thoroughly sterilized by the radiation, they barely decomposed."
"That sounds grim," Cinder observed.
"It was life back then," Seren shrugged. "And the survivors had their own things to worry about. Mostly why they had odd looking kids."
"Odd looking would be children what looked like me," Walentia remarked.
"And me," Koreen piped up, amending it with, "Only I am not as wide as most like me."
"They didn't start lookin' like me until a lot later," Ronik added.
"The three races of The World we have now, started as two," Seren nodded. "Magentians, like my mother, were very uncommon. Electrians, like Koreen, were much more common. All Miralenda's children were born looking like Magentians, but all of them could also talk to the entity – though some did it better than others. Miralenda taught them to avoid getting the entity to do things for them. It turned out that in creating her to communicate, Miralenda was also given the ability to compel the entity to do things.
