Dadr'Ba (25 page)

P’Ko started work on the cleaning crew; his apprenticeship would have him work thru all the functional areas of the T’Bm starting with the cleaning crew, and there he would become familiar with the location, functions, and hazards of the T’Bm from one end to the other. Once he had become proficient on the cleaning crew, he would transition to maintenance and work through proficiency training, learning to maintain and repair all of the machinery that makes up the T’Bm. It will take years to attain Journeyman Mechanic status and become a full-fledged T’Bm mechanic and years more to become a Master Mechanic.

P’Ko was assigned to the cleaning crew of ten, led by a crusty old crew chief, Ni’To
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. The team worked a staggered shift from the production crew, starting before the end of the production shift, then working past the production crew end of shift all the way till the production crew came back online for their prechecks. Most of the cleaning and much of the maintenance needed to occur while the machinery was offline. This schedule bit into the time available to spend with Su’Zi, but he and Su’Zi were determined not to let it interfere with their relationship and worked around it.

There was another apprentice on the cleaning crew, An’Gi
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; that had started the previous year, and although she and P’Ko worked on different teams, they became friends.

P’Ko learned from the rest of the crew that he got there just in time for the Run with the Se’Ro’Bs. The run is conducted annually shortly after graduation and is an indoctrination/rite of passage for new Mi’Nr’s.

One combined run is carried out for the five sectors and is hosted on a rotating basis between the sectors. This year is Bo’R three’s turn to host and even though P’Ko had just arrived, he will be expected to participate like all the other new apprentices, unless he refused.

Without hesitation P’Ko agreed, then the first chance he got he called Su’Zi and asked what he had just gotten himself into. Su’Zi grew silent, when P’Ko asked, and P’Ko could feel a tumult of emotions emanate from her, despite the fact that they were talking over a Comms Link and had a kilometer or more of Dadr’Ba between them. 

Finally, with an enormous effort to maintain self-control, she said that it was probably a mistake for him to agree, even though he would have had to face some shame and humility. He would’ve been able to run next year. When P’Ko asked why, she said, gravely “sometimes people die.”

Su’Zi went on to do her best to explain what a Se’Ro’Bs is. It’s a skittish creature that lurks in the dark shadows and is practically invisible. When hit with a light it appears to be a black shadow, not reflecting any light.

The stories say that it’s soundless and swift and that there might be more than one. There have been reports of encounters near the same time in different sectors, and sometimes it seems at first, to be following, then inexplicably it appears ahead or to one side instead of behind. But no one has ever encountered more than one at a time or if they have, didn’t live to tell about it.

A few people have said that if they listen very carefully that they could hear them walking or running on padded feet, especially if they splash across a puddle on the tunnel floor, but they have claws, evidenced on some of the remains that were found so the claws must be retractable.

The few survivors that have lived to tell about a brush or close encounter, say they must be sensed more than seen. But not sensed psychically, they seem to be psychically invisible. They need to be detected by the combination of all a Mi’Nr’s senses and then by the lack sensory detection, by not getting back the indication of something that should be there.

Su’Zi was pretty sure P’Ko’s Mi’Nr’s’ senses weren’t developed enough to detect and evade a Se’Ro’Bs. And the runners must work together, and share their senses, something that P’Ko had little practice with.

The Se’Ro’Bs is said not to be “alive” which makes it psychically invisible; it’s like a living black hole, all energy goes in but nothing comes out.

It seems to live to feed, but is rarely encountered, it remains hidden, perhaps dormant until someone vulnerable, usually alone stumbles across its path. Then the Se’Ro’Bs will stalk its victim until the perfect moment and then strike.

The victims’ bodies are rarely found. The few that have been found have been crushed and sucked dry of all fluids, desiccated somehow by the cold, dry environment, or by the Se’Ro’Bs. The remains become difficult to recognize, often appearing only as a discolored patch of frozen tunnel wall or floor.

Su’Zi explained that the number of runners in the run is limited, it starts at the host sectors Ol’Tn and ends at a survival station down in Zone Four at the edge of Dadr’Ba’s hull. The survival station is small being made only to hold ten comfortably, but the number of runners is restricted to twenty-five, so at the end, they’ll be packed in.

Everyone must make it to the survival station. They’ll be running not as a large group, but smaller separate teams or packs. It’s not a race. The challenge and thrill is to get a Se’Ro’Bs to start chasing a pack. Then the packs must work together, mostly psychically, to evade the Se’Ro’Bs. The packs must cut each other off, before the chased pack gets too tired, and draw off the Se’Ro’Bs before they’re caught.

They’ve been lucky, it’s been many years since anyone was lost, but many are saying that their luck is due to run out.

After the run, everyone packs into a single Supply Shuttle and they ride together, back up to a celebration and award ceremony in Ol’Tn.

P’Ko can’t back out; it would make permanent his label as a For’Nr, a U’Te attempting to join the elite corps of Mi’Nr’s. If he backed out, he’d lose face in this proud, highly competitive, tight-knit community of Mi’Nr’s. He’d always remain a wannabe forever, never fully accepted into the community, excluded from the main group. He’d be given menial jobs, and eventually, perhaps, sent back Up’Ln and forced by the CA to spend the rest of his life working off the cost of removing his unauthorized Bio-Mods. There’s no way P’Ko would allow that to happen, even though it would be a mortal sin, he’d rather die first.

The run was only a week away, and there was just barely enough time for Su’Zi to put her name in the lottery to be one of the returning runners, the odds are not good, there being less than a one in twenty-five chance of your name being drawn.

Despite the danger nearly all the younger Mi’Nr’s, especially those un-mated wanting to prove themselves mate-worthy, and a few old ones wanting to take back youth by challenging life, participate.

Su’Zi managed to make it over to Bo’R three every night for the week before the race and do short practice runs with P’Ko. Su’Zi’s attention helped P’Ko get accepted by the rest of the Bo’R three crew. After only a couple of days, Su’Zi and P’Ko had company from Bo’R three on their practice runs. They managed to run sections of each of the zones that the course covered, the whole time there was no sign of the Se’Ro’Bs. Su’Zi cautioned P’Ko that the Run with the Se’Ro’Bs has never failed to find one and have it engage in the chase.

P’Ko had the most trouble transitioning to all fours near the bottom of zone three, approaching zone four, most of the native-born Mi’Nr’s spent a part of their Bo’Ba years scampering around on all fours and trips to “The Edge” are a popular field trip for Mi’Nr families. P’Ko found Zone Four barely walkable, more like stagger-able, and most comfortable on all fours. Thankfully the Se’Ro’Bs is forced to slow down in the lower levels too.

There was too little practice time for P’Ko to get accustomed to Zone Four before they realized it, it was the day before the race, and the lottery announcements were published. Su’Zi didn’t make it.

Su’Zi realized that the odds of her getting in weren’t good, but she was still hurt, almost devastated. She knew people and had a couple of friends that made it; they offered to let her take their slots. But the rules were clear, the lottery is the hand of fate and tampering with fate invited disaster, no substitutions are allowed.

Su’Zi tried to reassure P’Ko that he was ready, but there was no hiding the fact that they were both scared.

Chn’Gi was finding it more and more difficult to control her emotions the knowledge she was gaining from reading Dadr’Ba’s pre-ToG history was challenging and awkward. The people spoke and wrote differently back then; they used a different vernacular and syntax, but with practice, it got easier for Chn’Gi to understand.

Over time, the language got easier to read, and Chn’Gi learned how the data was organized. The disparate data elements that had at first seemed like random pixels of a loosely woven matrix slowly began to form an image. As the picture became clearer, Chn’Gi’s mind grew full and heavy. It was like a whole new universe was opening up to her, she felt cheated and betrayed by the CA for keeping this knowledge from the people.

The end of our world was not what we were told, at least not entirely. The actual part of the story was that it was caused, as forecast by our scientists, by an increase in solar storm activity in conjunction with a reversal of Or’Gn’s magnetic field. Either event survivable had they not occurred simultaneously.

The end finally came after Dadr’Ba had left and a massive Solar Flare Coronal Mass Ejection struck the planet. The planet with its weak magnetic field had its atmosphere decimated and its surface irradiated, huge fire storms irrupted that quickly consumed what little oxygen was left in the dwindling, fleeing atmosphere. The disaster killed most, if not all life on the surface and left the planet virtually uninhabitable, according to the best estimates by the few survivors that escaped the holocaust in underground bunkers. What we were not told was that our ancestors had used up and poisoned our world long before.

It was a slow process, at least at first, gradually, over the course of thousands of years, people moved from hunter-gatherer to agrarian societies and formed into towns and villages. People continued to gather, technology evolved and as individuals and groups became empowered, they formed governments and states. These states became able to impose their State’s multiself will upon others. Some becoming hegemonies.

But then, from within these nation-states, individuals and groups coalesced and gained power through the use of mass media and instantaneous communications, and gaining the power of numbers made demands of their governments, more and more frequently with the threat of violence. People and groups demanded a voice and a say in the decisions the government made. Demands not just their own government but other governments as well.

In a world where malcontents, disenfranchised and radical militant groups can communicate freely, and media makes news of their complaints, small groups can organize and grow to be a force to be reckoned with and force concessions from nation states using protest and the use of violence by exploiting the ready availability and easy manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.

Violent extremist and terrorist groups formed, some supported by nation states seeking to undermine rival countries. The terrorists feed off of and hide among the masses. With access to high volumes of high power, high capacity weapons, explosives and weapons of mass destruction, even lone actors can kill hundreds or even thousands, threatening and intimidating whole countries along with its people.

Complicating things further, governments, handicapped by the precedent set by their willingness to go into debt to pay off demands of their constituents, go into further debt to pay new demands. Declining budgets are the inevitable result and the already anemic efforts to properly steward the planet, and its recourses become hardly more than stuff for white papers and documentaries. 

With no strong world leadership, different factions in control of various parts of the world refused to cooperate on what was best for the planet. They placed their own constituent’s wants and needs above others and the health of the world.

As mismanagement and misuse exasperated the planets already limited resources, wars broke out, both conventional and nuclear. Critical sectors of the world’s ecosystem became unbalanced and poisoned, leaving vast areas of the planet virtually uninhabitable.

The people cancer that was plaguing the planet left the world unable to do much of anything to cure itself. Billions of people were already suffering, and their suffering made them more desperate and less willing to make further sacrifices that would remedy the planet’s sickness.

The planet’s natural balance became unstable. Terrible droughts and storms developed. It was as if the world was attempting to fight off the cancer that had taken over and that now impacted the planet’s health overall. Famines resulted in the deaths of many millions of people and left more millions to live on death’s doorstep, weakened by malnourishment and suffering from disease.

The survivors in the war-ravaged and environmentally decimated, nearly uninhabitable areas attempted to take vengeance against the ones they felt responsible and new waves of terrorist attacks spread the globe.

When the end came, the world was, according to some in temporary stagnation, while according to others in decline. There wasn’t enough food, drinking water, sanitation, and health care for the planets billions of poor disenfranchised souls.

Most of the world’s population had been surviving on subsistence rations in megacities. While the rest, diseased, starving, or dying of thirst or poisoned by polluted water, attempted to scratch out an existence trying to grow crops in putrefying, arid lands or poisoned swamps. Those really unfortunate survived by digging through contaminated putrifying wastes piling up around the mega cities.

As the sureness of the impending natural disaster coalesced into certitude, some realized that had the planet been healthier and the central governments stronger, and wealthier the outcome could be much different. As it was any attempt to save the world or mitigate, the planet-wide effects would be futile.

That left few options; technology was advanced enough that a few of the saner groups banded together to build Dadr’Ba and a couple of other ships like it, and allow a few to escape the devastation. We had reduced our world to a massive rubbish heap. It was time to leave.

The universe that had opened up before her weighed down on Chn’Gi. If O’M follows the same development path as Or’Gn, based on the rapid decline of what happened on Or’Gn, there might only be a poisoned, cancerous hulk of a planet left by the time Dadr’Ba arrives.

It had already become increasingly difficult to keep her reports to the CA benign. Chn’Gi knows that despite all her practice that she’s not a good actress. These latest revelations will be impossible to conceal.

Just the other day Chn’Gi’s comfort turned to fear when she got a confused look from one of her technicians when she accidentally used phraseology she picked up from the histories. The language of the history she was reading had infected her. She grew terrified that she would slip in one of her reports or in front of the Council and tip them off that she had gained knowledge of forbidden history.

She compensated by standardizing her reports even more than before, tightening the controls on the automatic checks done by her word processor. Surprisingly the Council didn’t seem to mind, just as long as the general content changed and new information was presented, delivery and format didn’t seem to matter.

Her regularly scheduled reports became mechanical and autonomic but inside she was terrified. The insight provided by her study of their history created in her mind an unavoidable collision between O’M and Dadr’Ba. Knowing how we or rather our ancestors destroyed Or’Gn and how the O’Mi’s seem to be following down the same path made her sick to her stomach, making her mind feel as if it were melting down.

After her reports, she would break down, weak, panting, heart pounding soon followed by a feeling of intense pressure in her mind. She would be forced to stop everything and focus on mind clearing exercises, meditating on nothing until the episode past, but it was beginning to take longer and longer to recover.

If only she had someone to share this information with, to help carry this burden, to collaborate with in deciding what to do. She began to appreciate why the CA had banned this information, this study, if she were a religious person she would have described this information as the knowledge of the gods, with the power to destroy Dadr’Ba society and cause the failure of their mission.

Chn’Gi had estimated the population of O’M to be in the billions, based on solid number extrapolation from the figures she’d been accumulating.

Then finally, her team detected TV (Television) signals, and finally were able to start deciphering the O’Mi’s language, or rather languages, the O’Mi’s were still too primitive to have a unified world government or a common language. And she discovered that they had fought many wars, hundreds even, that on several occasions spanned the entire globe. The parallels between O’M and Or’Gn are unmistakable and terrifying; it is certain that O’M like Or’Gn had so many years ago would soon develop nuclear weapons.

But why should she pre-judge or predict that the technical developments and actions of the IL on O’M would parallel that of Or’Gn? What right do we have to assume that these people will make the same bad choices that we did?

She contemplated confessing to the Central Council, she’s a D’En and has clearances for sensitive information; they may not punish her, but may welcome her into the fold of people “in the know.” It would be hypocritical to punish her for possessing knowledge that they possess. As soon as the thought flashed through Chn’Gi consciousness, she dismissed it. The CA is built on double standard, elitist hypocrisy and in their view she was nothing.

Even if she were allowed to live, what would become of Lu’Gs and Lu’Gs’ helper “P’Ko”? They would probably be apprehended, imprisoned and, possibly, probably, even forcibly retired.

Chn’Gi felt herself weakening under the stress of it all. Her around the clock act is only relieved by occasional exhaustion induced sleep with an increased desire for the assistance of liquor. The only other relief is when she’s soaking in the tub “reading” engulfed in another world, a former world, her favorite being the industrial age, when science was king, without bounds and anything and everything was believed possible.

After every one of these escapes upon return to the present and the private perdition, that she’d created for herself, a flood of guilt and remorse surrounded her.

She’s already made mistakes, like her use of old language, to one of her technicians. When she slipped, using an old phase the tech gave her a very funny look. She, of course, corrected herself, but for hours, even days afterward she feared that, at any moment, soldiers would bust in and take her away.

Sadly, she found herself welcoming the event.

Other times, the worst of times, Chn’Gi contemplated voluntary retirement. She saw the real possibility of a catastrophe when Dadr’Ba arrived at O’M. In many respects her personal life was a failure, she was unable to find a mate, though admittedly she hadn’t tried very hard, preferring to devote her time, including away from work, to her job, her career, and her studies. Something must be wrong with her; she felt she must be defective.

Now that she had stumbled, or sought out and discovered what was far and beyond the most significant discoveries since the Touch of God event, she was unable to act on it or to announce any hint of what she’s discovered. She doubted, yet hoped that that boy P’Ko had read it, then she wouldn’t be alone. Then she took back her hope, had P’Ko looked at it, he, she was confident, would be destroyed the same as it was destroying her.

In her desperation, she considered all of the options she could think of, just publishing it and letting things sort themselves out, but that would create anarchy and destroy all order on Dadr’Ba. She could confess to the CA, but that would lead to isolation, imprisonment and probably forced retirement. She could turn it over to the resistance, but what would they do? Use it against the CA? To what end?

All these choices she felt would lead to disaster, or nowhere. There was one hope, one possibility, one group, that might be able to help and they possibly already knew this “God’s knowledge”, and that’s the Church. The Church would be able to help, but how can she contact them, privately, without raising any alarms?