The Colony Ship Conestoga : The Complete Series: All Eight Books

by John Thornton

  “Birds?” Jerome wondered aloud. “Not like the chickens, I mean dodos, but living birds. I read a lament once, written a few years after the Great Event. I never appreciated it until today. That old author said something like this. ‘The more often we saw the things around us, the pretty, the wondrous, the living things, the more they become invisible to us. We took them for granted. We closed our eyes to the beauty of this world: the flowers, the trees, the birds. We ignored the splendid, and embraced the squalor. Then all we had left was squalor.’ I think she was quoting an earlier writer, but I am not sure. The passage was just a fragment.”

  “Birds. And fish! And living things everywhere!” Cammarry said and smiled at Jerome.

  “And dying thing in the dome,” Shadow reminded her. “You waste time on beauty which your friends may never see. Why do you not care?”

  “I do care!” Cammarry yelled.

  The bird flew away in a furry of flapping wings. The sound of the insects stopped abruptly. The fish in the water darted away.

  “They are choking on radioactive dust while you look at pretty baubles,” Shadow said harshly. “You do not care at all. Just parading your virtue of selfishness.”

  “I care!” She screamed. She turned to look at Jerome.

  “Cammarry, I know you care. You would not be here if you did not care.” He rushed over and tried to embrace her.

  She pushed him away. “We must continue the mission. Come on, we have wasted too much time already.” She marched over the bridge and turned onto the path which meandered along roughly parallel to the river. There was a carpet of green plants, with small white rounded heads covering the ground from the pathway to the river. Along the river were the beds of flowers, and to the opposite side of the pathway the habitat stretched out as far as they could see. Green grasses, occasional trees, and in the distance clumps where trees were grouped together.

  Jerome caught up to Cammarry and just walked beside her. He was unsure what to say, and even more confused over why she was acting as she was. They walked along the path in silence for about twenty minutes. The sky tube continued to shine down on them. The birds flew overhead, and occasionally landed in the grass or on the pathway. The insects chirped, chattered, and buzzed, but the two adventurers walked without comment.

  “There are building up ahead,” Jerome finally interjected. “I am surprised we have not seen any people yet.”

  “Fruit People, Goat People, or Chicken People?” Cammarry asked with a bit of a smile. “I am sorry for being snippy. This place has a way of calming my mind, yet I still fear for our friends in Dome 17. Do you think I have utterly failed them?”

  Jerome took her hand in his, “No more than I have failed them.” He tried to pull her into a caress, but she dropped his hand and pulled away.

  “So you admit I have failed?” Her composure was gone.

  “Cammarry, we went through that thing in space that shot us to this ship. It is not a personal failure,” Jerome said. “Sandie is still trying to locate the signal, but we may never be able to contact Dome 17 again.”

  “I am not about to quit. We just need to fix our things. First, the com-links, then, the teleportation system. Follow me, the elevators to take us up to where that Reproduction and Fabrication place is located must be behind those buildings.”

  The closer buildings were different from the ones further away. The distant building were obviously made from permalloy of a dark ruddy color. The closer ones, small hut sized structures, were constructed from some other material. They were finished in a rough and imprecise manner, with one level, and the outer walls were a greyish and mottled color.

  A man walked out by swinging a door open, and he stood on the porch of the nearest hut. He looked at them with a measure of amusement as well as curiosity.

  “You must be from Aston. You folks do not come up to Wolf City too often,” he said. His words were said in a dialect which was different from the people on the needle ship, somewhat accented, but understandable. “What brings you here? Market day? Looking to buy some slaves?”

  “Buy some what?” Jerome sputtered, but caught himself.

  “Yes, are not from here. We are looking to repair some of our equipment. Would you direct us to the elevators which go to Reproduction and Fabrication?” Cammarry was direct.

  The man put something in his mouth and chewed on it a bit. His brown eyes looked lackadaisically at them. “Must be some mighty important tools, I reckon, otherwise you would have just gone without, used a cubie, or had a slave bring it here.”

  “My name is Jerome, and yes, the items are very important to us.”

  “An odd name, and odd speech. I am Stanley. You Aston folks sure are wound up tight. Most slaves are not as keyed up as your two.” The man’s clothing was neatly woven, a light gray color, his shoes were manufactured and intact, and he was clean, unlike the needle ship people, like Khin and the others in orbit. His black hair was precisely trimmed, and his face was clean shaven. He was far better groomed than any of the people they had met on the needle ship. He spoke slowly and with an air about him. “Not that I say you should trust slaves much, unless they know their place, and pounding that into them is a chore in itself,” the man said and then spit out a stream of brown sputum.

  “This man needs firm encouragement,” Shadow whispered to Cammarry. “You have no time to waste.”

  “Would you tell us about this town, Wolf City?” Jerome asked with as much charm as he could. “As you said, we seldom come this way.”

  Stanley stood and pondered while chewing. After a while he responded. “You are wearing clothing from the originators. Folks around here do not usually dress like that, but I guess customs are different over in Aston.”

  “Yes, things are different where we come from,” Jerome replied nicely. “Any help you can offer? We really do need to repair our tools.”

  “Well, I am not sure. I know locating a good tool can be like finding a needle in a haystack,” the man replied with a smirk. “Even harder than training a slave to know its place. Sometimes the beatings are more work than the slave is worth, am I right or am I right?” There was an odd conspiratorial tone in the man’s words.

  “About slaves,” Jerome began with trepidation. “I am not….”

  Cammarry interrupted Jerome as she walked directly toward the man. “So Stanley, do you know where the elevators are, or not? I am a stranger to this place, but you are indigenous.” Cammarry’s voice was strained, her lips taunt, and her fists were clenched. “Are you refusing to help me? Or just ignorant?”

  Stanley took another bite of what he was holding in his hand, something thin and brown. “You have quite a mouth on you, and you are awfully worked up about some old equipment or tools. Why such stress? Of course I know where they are. I just do not know why I should help you.”

  “We would be very appreciative of…” Jerome began.

  Cammarry had reached Stanley on the porch of the hut. She grabbed him by the shoulders and violently slammed him up against the grey colored wall. “Is that reason enough? Stanley.” She had his arms pinned to his sides. The wall actually moved a bit, unlike what a permalloy wall would have done.

  “Hey!” Stanley tried feebly to pull away. “I am not a slave!”

  Cammarry slammed his back against the wall again. He then croaked out the words, “Sorry…I will tell you. Those elevators are in the sidewalls, bow….ward…off the bridge from Wolf City…Back behind the…. City Hall… Aston is laid out…. the same way I hear… just at the stern of the sky tube.” Stanley was gasping for air. His eyes were dazed and unfocused.

  Cammarry released his arms, and stepped back. “Was that so hard to say?”

  “Well…” He took a few deep breaths. “Want a bite? Take your edge off. It is good lek,” Stanley offered. He then took a nibble of the brown stick. He had clung tenaciously to it while Cammarry assaulted him. The lek was about the width of his index finger, and about as long. He took another bite, this ti
me it was a large bite. He chewed quickly, with a bit of brown dribble running out of the corner of his mouth. He extended his hand. “This lek is fresh and good, try some?”

  Cammarry flexed her muscles, about to slap the hand holding the brown stick, but Jerome grabbed her arm. “Cammarry, no!”

  “Right. We need to complete the mission,” Cammarry said and turned away.

  “You Aston folks are way to overwrought.” Stanley wandered back into his hut and closed the door.

  Cammarry walked briskly toward the permalloy buildings which were still a good distance away. A few other people looked out from windows or doorways of the huts, but none of them approached or said anything.

  “Cammarry? What happened back there?” Jerome asked as he hustled to catch up to her.

  The path now met a more solid roadway and that corresponded to where the permalloy buildings began. They were constructed in orderly rows. Each had small windows set into the permalloy, a sliding door on their front, and a flat roof.

  “I got the information I needed,” Cammarry snapped. “We need to complete this mission, and not waste more time with uncooperative natives.”

  “Cammarry, these people are going to be our neighbors, and this is our home,” Jerome sputtered.

  “Then that man has just learned an important lesson. He will know to answer my questions,” Cammarry snapped back.

  “Cammarry, I am here to help you, but we must do this the right way.”

  “We do not have time for niceties. We are probably already too late, but…” Cammarry stopped herself. She shook her head and wiggled her arms. “Oh, Jerome, I am so sorry. I just need to succeed. I must know what happened to them. Jubal said I was not…..”

  “Jubal was wrong, and we are here, but we must not make enemies out of these people,” Jerome said. “So we should try to avoid any more direct contact until we have Sandie on the com-links again. Agreed?”

  “Yes.”

  They hurried along the roads, passing by the permalloy housing blocks. Nearly every house itself had started out looking the same, the same pattern and design, but there were variations in the yards, flowerbeds, gardens, and other assorted accessories around them. Trees varied from colorful flowering ones to conical ones of a deep bluish-green color.

  Children were suddenly running everywhere. They were all kinds of ages; from small toddlers, to young, to prepubescent, and they were active. Most all had black hair, but a few had brown, and even fewer were blondes or redheaded. Children played and ran from yard to yard. They were singing and they were playing, and dancing.

  In one yard a beast of some kind growled angrily at them. It was behind a fence, but it was frightening. Somewhat larger than the goats they knew from the needle ship, it had no horns, and much different looking legs with hooves. It had a pointed snout and laid back ears. A small child ran out of the house and called, “Angel, be a good dog! No barking!”

  Jerome stared at the animal which quieted down upon the child’s command. It folded its rear legs down, and sat on its rump. Its ears sprang forward, and the tongue lolled from its mouth. The little girl just gave a small grin and waved to Jerome. He hesitantly waved back, and watched the child and the beast as he walked backward. He suddenly bumped into Cammarry who had stopped abruptly.

  “Cammarry did you see that beast? Is that a wolf? Hey, what is wrong?” Jerome asked as he saw she had stopped at a junction of roads.

  “Look!”

  The building at the far corner was two stories high, and much longer than the houses they had passed while entering the town. It too was made from the ruddy permalloy. The side facing them had ten windows on the second floor in a staggered pattern. The other visible side had a few more windows similarly positioned. On the ground floor the windows were all black coated, and the doors were reinforced with cross beams. A shiny ventilation shaft emerged from the sidewall and made a ninety degree turn upward. Horizontally across the middle of the building was a white sign with gold colored letters which read, ‘Slave Training and Domicile’.

  The permalloy sidewalk in front of that building was painted a yellow color. A crowd of adult people was gathered in clothing similar to what the man Cammarry had assaulted was wearing. Many of them were sucking on, or chewing the brown sticks, the other man had called lek.

  “Training slaves?” Jerome asked. “Perhaps slave means something else to these people? Perhaps employee or prisoner? Not institutional slavery, can it be?”

  “It looks that way,” Cammarry responded.

  The crowd parted briefly and several people were visible for a moment. They wore orange and were chained together from their ankles. It was hard to see more.

  Cammarry spun away. “We will need to go back to that last street and turn there. This main road is too busy.”

  Jerome followed her as they walked back. Jerome wondered at what he had seen, but the crowds had hidden too much for him to be sure. The words on the side of the building were more telling, but subject to interpretation.

  As they walked back, there was a quick yap from the fenced yard. The beast was still there, so they crossed to the far side of the street as they turned the corner. The beast did growl a bit, but then looked at the little girl, and licked her face. The girl giggled and said, “Good dog Angel. Those are just traders come for market day. Must be new slaves waking up.”

  Jerome and Cammarry walked a few blocks away and then turned back toward the main road. Walking that block, they were then a distance away from the slave building. Cammarry hardly looked back toward that corner, but instead turned toward an even bigger building, one that said ‘City Hall’ on it.

  “Slaves?” Jerome asked.

  “We just keep focused on this mission, right?” Cammarry replied tersely. “We need to find that bridge behind this building. See the great wall of this biosphere rises up not too far beyond here.”

  The City Hall building was from permalloy, but was of two different colors. The central doorway was an off white color, and that same shade was around the edges of the building as well as the frames around the windows of its two stories. The sections of wall between the frames was a light tan color that reminded both of them of the dust outside of Dome 17, although here the color was not as dreadful, since the light from the sky tube reflected off of it.

  “We will walk around the building,” Cammarry indicated a sidewalk which wrapped to either side of the building. There were neatly trimmed bushes in round clumps between the sidewalk and the building.

  “Can you believe all the varieties of plants we see here?” Jerome said in awe as he looked at the cultivated plantings. The bushes, the flowers, and the other plants were set in aesthetically pleasing ways.

  “It is very impressive,” Cammarry said as they walked around the side of the building.

  “Oh!” Jerome said as he walked around the building and stopped.

  Water was spraying upward and falling back into a circular pool with a permalloy edge. There were three spouts shooting the water to a height of about five meters.

  “Why is no one fixing this broken pipe system?” Jerome commented.

  “It does not look broken, exactly,” Cammarry said without much conviction. “But why would anyone waste water like this?”

  “Maybe there is some function we are not aware of? It could be part of a water cycle to nurture the biological species here, or maybe it serves some function of injecting water into the air?”

  Jerome turned and looked around. There was an old man standing near to the back side of the building. He was wearing simple orange colored clothing, and had been using a set of pruning shears on the bushes.

  Jerome walked over to him. “What is the purpose of this?”

  “Sir, it is just a fountain,” an old man answered.

  “A fountain of water, but why?” Jerome scratched his head.

  “To show beauty. I am just a slave, so I may be wrong. Forgive me. I will continue my work.” The man turned back to the buses and
snipped a small bit off.

  “I am Jerome, what is your name?”

  The man turned slowly back. His skin was wrinkled and his features were drawn. He had a long ponytail of scraggly gray hair hanging down his back, tied in a cord. “I am Abner, sir. How may I serve you?”

  Jerome saw that the man had simple sandals on his feet, but on his left foot a loop of permalloy was situated between the Achilles tendon and the bones. The metal pierced the foot completely. The wound was very old and well scared, and the gray metal moved freely in the healed hole there behind his ankle. It was chained to a block of permalloy about twenty-five centimeters wide.