Plague Planet (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  The mountainous exchangers and their power supplies were gone, not due to any bombing but because they had been sold off to help clear the colony of startup debt. That was typical; they had probably been used to terraform a quarter of the planets in the sector. But the craters and island rings where asteroids and comets had impacted and burrowed into the crust were still self-evident, again, like the naming of the planet no one had bothered to smooth their ugliness over.

  In fact, some had become tourist attractions. One small city was near a crater lake. It was called Crater City, another indication of the lack of imagination of the populace.

  There was even a perfect circle lake in the south west of the main continent. Islands dotted the lake and Sprite focused on it for a brief moment. He snorted at the words stenciled into the cliff. “Perfect circle lake resort and spa.”

  “Sounds like a tourist trap,” Sprite replied.

  “Most likely.”

  The planet had been bought by a consortium of back to basic colonists and businesses, financed by the low interest loans of the time period before the Xeno war. They had leased several colony stasis ships to make the run back and forth between the core worlds and the new colony once the terraforming had produced a hospitable environment. They hadn't even waited for the trees and plants to take hold as they had on Eden or other worlds. In fact, according to the encyclopedia entry there had been some scandal involving the colonists clear cutting great swaths of forests for firewood in the first winter. The response from the colony leaders about those news reports were a resounding mind your own damn business.

  Of course with the additional greenhouse gases in the air and the lack of solid ozone, not to mention the lack of trees to keep the oxygen levels maintained they'd had problems. The algae in the oceans and other waterways hadn't spread far and fast enough to sustain the oxygen atmosphere so twenty four years after the incident the colony had come to the Federal government asking for assistance. They had nearly run through their resources and since the planet had never supported life it didn't have other natural resources they could access. They'd gotten a cold shoulder response.

  According to the report, the colony representatives had been approached by a lobbyist who had also been in the capital at the time. They had struck a series of deals in a bar. Six months later Perfect Circle resort had broken ground.

  They'd used aircraft to do an orange peel over the planet, seeding it with additional plant life. They had also set up reserves of land to remain untouched by the colonists for at least a century to give them plenty of time to take root.

  They buried pockets of biomass for conversion into fossil fuels over the centuries, and even cleaned up the devastated forests. It had been a windfall of good publicity for the company when it had needed it.

  Still, due to the planet's location and its' population's selective interest in only north American, European, and Russian biota the planet didn't have tropical rain forests or jungles. Most of the northern continents were pale echoes of what the America's and Russia had back before the AI war.

  Perfect Circle had tried to change some of that, they'd seeded remote areas with additional seeds, but had mixed results. Apparently the director of terraforming repair on the planet had been a bit of a crusader. She had diverted some of the funds to such projects and had eventually been found out and fired. She'd remained on the planet and risen into politics on the world before she'd been killed in a suspicious incident that hadn't been detailed. It was odd that the incident and the woman were even mentioned.

  The most contentious part of the Perfect Circle deal was the location of a series of island prisons. Apparently the resort company did a sideline business running private prisons. Since Epsilon was a cross roads to other systems it became a dumping ground for excess prison population before the war.

  The resort had another side to it as well, a mental health institution for the rich. It was part rehab, part private resort prison for those people who had a great deal of money, or their children. If they ran afoul of the law they would buy their way out and come to this world to 'meditate and recover'.

  With some of the seedier side of civilization already on the planet it wasn't too surprising that some of the original colonists took offense to it. They attempted to tame the lawless groups with heavy rules banning alcohol and illicit substances but that only drove them underground and made the population complicit in its trade along with its consumption. Unfortunately organics thought they needed these substances to have a good time.

  Irons paused as he caught that last line. Apparently the being who had wrote the entry had been an AI. He snorted and read on. The next part was from Sprite. She'd assembled the information from various sources. It was filled with qualifiers and appendix notes. He ignored them, focusing on the main content.

  Most of the world had been rural; the back to basics people hadn't been interested in a recreation of the cities they had run away from. During the Xeno war the planet had been resettled by refugees from Pyrax and other systems that had been devastated by the war. But the lack of industry and a population unsupportable with the current infrastructure had caused chaos and famine. Also, most people wanted as far away from this sector as possible so many had moved on over the decades, most were tradesmen or people with some education wanting a better life for themselves or their families.

  This had given rise to the power of the mob. They had grown in both popularity and power, for they took care of their own people. Everyone got a cut, and you got what you put into the business. Robber crews roved the farms during harvest time. Any truck was targeted. Some farmers cut deals with the mobs and either just turned their contents over to them willingly or burned their own crops and hid their stores.

  The clusters of refugees had been driven mad by hunger. Eventually they had broken out of the confines of the camps and turned on the land like locusts. Like many other colony worlds the devastation had torn the bonds of civilization apart. Ships stopped coming to the planet and the people were trapped with no place to go. They spread out, eking out a living the best they could with whatever they could get their hands on. Apparently some places like Crater city held on to their civility but only barely. He wasn't sure why and apparently Sprite wasn't either.

  Skip ahead through the dark times until about a century ago. There, a renaissance of sorts, started. A group of people emigrated to the planet and started up small cottage factories. One was a sleeper but Sprite lacked a name, the highlighted blank spot fairly jumped out at him. Apparently this person had turned Landing back into a small town, and then grew it into a city of industry and commerce.

  The renewed industry had slowly trickled to the farms. With eighteenth and nineteenth century farming machinery the farms that had needed dozens of people to maintain them now needed less than a handful. They were also far more efficient. Looking for work the people had turned to the cities or built their own.

  When people heard of this they flocked to the old city. It grew exponentially, and eventually they settled across the river to form the gothic city of Gotham. The cities of Metropolis and New Chicago had started up a decade later. Each of the cities was strategically located, as were the new cities that were popping up all over the planet.

  Each had something to contribute to the economy. Some were cross roads of commerce; others were located near large pockets of minerals that were needed to fuel the growing factories. New Chicago had become a rival after some of the younger generation broke out on their own to put their own ideas into action. It now produced most of the hydrogen/electric hybrid engines the vehicles and aircraft used. Most of the vehicles were also produced in New Chicago. Aircraft were built in New Seattle on the western coast.

  Since the planet had been terraformed over a thousand years ago it had little natural fossil fuels which was a problem. The industrialists had solved that sixty years ago by investing in hydrogen engines. That wouldn't have amounted to much but a passing ship had traded them a hydrogen fu
el cell... which some wise entrepreneur had taken apart and copied.

  Port town and Fisherman's wharf in the southern part of the main continent built most of the ships on Epsilon. Up until a few years ago they were traditional wooden sailing vessels, though now outboard or paddle board engines and steel hulls were starting to make inroads into shipping.

  Ground vehicles such as cars, trucks, and public transportation were making a comeback. Apparently they and aircraft had been re-invented by a few entrepreneurs and historians with access to old footage files. Unlike many industrialists they hadn't thrown up their hands in despair and given up on trying to recreate the vehicles and technology of the old Federation. No, they had set that aside or at least set it as an end goal. Instead they had focused on what they could achieve, delving as far back to the nineteenth century Earth time period for inspiration. Now that mass production was in play their world was finally changing and evolving.

  Apparent attempts to copy air cars and other modern air vehicles had met with dim results so far. In attempting to understand why, the makers rediscovered that these vehicles were made out of incredibly light weight metals and plastics that were heat and wear resistant. They couldn't have replicated the repulser force emitters that kept the cars aloft. That project had been picked up and then abandoned several times over the years with little or no progress made apparently.

  The most common aircraft was a copy of a Douglas DC-1 with upgraded hydrogen/electric hybrid engines. It had a crew of two, could carry up to twelve passengers, it was eighteen meters long and had a twenty six meter wide wingspan. Its engines were better than the radial engines they had been based on, with a top speed of three hundred and fifty one kph and a twenty five hundred kilometer range. Over a hundred of these aircraft as well as others filled the air, moving cargo and passengers.

  The planet was on the cusp of a second industrial revolution, teetering there but unable to see their full potential. They were definitely in the late nineteenth and possibly early twentieth century in some places, in places like Metropolis or Gotham or Hazard, much further along the admiral judged.

  Interstellar trade had picked up as the planet's civilization had improved. It was aggravating from a spacer's perspective though, they only allowed water for fuel trade, not the hydrogen or hydrogen fuel cells. Apparently there was some sort of law preventing their export, which was ironic since they had gotten the technology by importing it and essentially copying it and stealing it. Five years ago they had finally started filtering and distilling the water. He could only imagine what centuries of unfiltered water had done to the fusion engines and drives of the ships that came and left from this world before then.

  Of course the mobsters were still there, getting their cut of all trade and most of the businesses. That was still a problem, though many had 'gone legit' with titles such as commissioner. The so called county commissioners were the equivalent of colony leaders on the planet. There was a governor, Mr. Oman, but his was more a puppet regime than a true source of power. He was in it for the prestige and under the table bribes and power brokering. There were rumors of another, shadow government of godfathers, but no proof of it.

  Now that industry and surplus food had taken root the population was growing exponentially once more. The interest of interstellar trade had encouraged some of the leaders to return to the good old days. They wanted a return to the golden days before the Xeno war, if only so they and their own could be on the top raking the profits from it all.

  Sprite estimated the population at around twenty million, most of that was clustered in the major cities. Gotham had the largest population of nearly one million, though Metropolis wasn't far behind with something like eight hundred thousand beings. The capital had about six hundred thousand people there.

  People dressed in various fashions, mostly Victorian. Some near the city center of power still dressed in Victorian outfits or ancient twentieth century business suits. Others dressed in a mix of steamer punk or other styles. Some folks near the space ports or on the outskirts of the main cities dressed in twentieth century or even American western wear. Normally the western wear was reserved for the ranchers and farmers, in cities like Hazard it was one part practical, and one part showing your roots. Some of the factory workers preferred denim and simple shirts and suspenders.

  The planet's population had a mix of alien species but about half of the population was human. There were thousands of neo's, but most were dogs, gorillas or chimps around the towns and cities. Full feline neo’s and others like wolves and bears preferred the back wood wilds. Apparently Sprite had found colonies of Neo Otters, a Neo species Irons had thought extinct. They were clustered around the coasts but some ranged inland in small clans.

  Some of the cities were metropolitan, with the species mixing. But others had towns, areas that were strictly one species that rarely went into the other species towns. Each town had its own trademark style and markings.

  The admiral had of course seen it before, but it was a bit disheartening to see such segregation here.

  Veraxins were the second largest population, with Elves, Gashg, Naga, Talasians, T'clock, Relgarth, the occasional Tarq, and Telerite thrown in for good measure.

  Some of the species preferred various climates, for instance Naga, and Relgarth preferred cities and towns near deserts. Telerites preferred mining towns; their natural inclination to dig helped them there. Gashg preferred marshes and swamps in the tropics near the equator. T'clock preferred the hot jungles.

  He'd heard that the various species got along well outside of the cities and towns, in the wilds they did their own thing and pulled together well, each using their specialties or interests to better themselves. He wished them well.

  There were a dozen major cities on the main continent. The cities were at the pinnacle of civilization as the forefront of technology and industry. Most were still clawing their ways out of the dark ages. Most were in the early twentieth century in terms of style and level of technology.

  But the impact was mainly centralized, only a little of its impact was filtering down from those with the most money to other classes. There apparently was a growing middle class; they were based in the industries and construction workers building the towering buildings in the cities. So far unions had only a minor impact on the industries. The capitalists still reigned supreme.

  He'd wondered how they'd gone so long without a pirate raid. Epsilon was a better target than say Centennial; after all it had a tech base close to the twentieth century. Phoenix pointed out a series of ground defense installations, one per continent. Each was on a mountain in a mountain chain. The energy reading danced around; most likely they had a central fusion reactor with decoys or a series of micro reactors. Keeping them up and running would deter any pirate, after all one of those planetary class energy weapons could tear a cruiser apart at an AU out.

  Also, each had a good sized city nearby. Most likely because the fusion reactors needed to power the defensive guns was tapped to power the city when not in use. Also, he was fairly certain they needed parts to keep them running. That partially explained the steep port fees, it wasn't all graft then.

  Indeed, he'd been challenged when they'd entered orbit. He'd been told to pay the port fees, they were non-negotiable. He'd grumbled but agreed. It wasn't like he had any other choice. At least they scaled them to the ship size.

  Nineteenth and early twentieth century medical technology, radio, rail ways, and even flight had made a comeback over the past twenty years. There were of course teething issues integrating such ancient technology... and reinventing much of it and its' supporting infrastructure... More modern technology was haphazardly strewn around the planet, mainly centralized around the protective planetary defense communities or the space ports. The people there jealously guarded it too.

  The vehicles and other transportation methods were a mix like any colony. It was better than Gaston, which only had animals, wind, boats, or bicycles to transport
people or goods. Here there were the usual mix of animals for riding or pulling carts, but also steam locomotives, and early automobiles were mixed with elderly air cars and primitive aircraft. There were steam ships plying the oceans and waterways, Sprite had pointed out a casino paddle boat the American Queen. She'd apparently picked up an article about how it had burned in the middle of a river killing hundreds of people who hadn't been able to escape. There was something to be said about knowing how to swim, he thought with a pang.

  Pockets of modern Federation technology were here and there on the planet, but with little knowledge of how to repair or maintain it, let alone power it all, they were not in use. So it would of course break down over time he realized. No new computers but plug and play with what they've got had attritioned their parts supplies, no wonder they were so interested in outside trade. Trade with ships had sparked renewed interest in repairing and rebuilding their tech base. No one had that ability in the sector until he had arrived on the scene. Lately better education and an interest in repairing tech had sparked an engineering explosion. People were reinventing tech all over the place.

  Eventually Destiny or another ship from Pyrax would come along and really kick things off. Hopefully soon he thought.

  Chapter 2

  There were three space ports, the primary one was in a county called Hazard on the main continent. At one point the old port had been along the sea next to a growing metropolis. That had changed sixty years ago when a shuttle accident wiped out over a dozen blocks of real estate and thousands of people.