Dadr'Ba (6 page)

Directly above him some distance away he could see the tens of meters of specially treated ice, and the dull glow of the fusion engine beyond along with a multitude of associated machinery, machinery needed to keep Dadr’Ba alive and on the move.

It slowly began to get dark as end shift approached; the multitude of lights from around the machines surrounding the engine began to shut off and the light, diffused by the translucent specially treated ice, began to fade drawing to a close the end of a Dadr’Ba work day in sector three.

P’Ko, forgot about the time and his pursuers as he scanned the scene below him, the Church, the commissary, the sector exchange and its vendors. Then in the fading light, he thought he could make out his mother closing up her tailor shop. He would have to hurry if he was going to beat her home. 

P’Ko took one last admiring glance at the fading glow of the massive engine, above, then seeing that Dan’Zu and his cronies had given up their search, the only activity now visible, preparations for a graduation ceremony inside the stadium later that evening. He made his way home.

Su’Zi could hardly believe where she was, or what was happening, she was seated in the last seat in the last row. But she was here, and she was graduating!

Her class sat in chairs lined up adjacent to the speaker’s podium, on the opposite side sat the many officials and teachers that claimed some credit for this graduating class of fifty students.

Where Su’Zi sat reflecting on her family status and overall academic ranking in the class according to standardized test scores. She grew up in mining camps and had been community home schooled in the impromptu classroom that moved with T’Bm as it worked its way around and through Dadr’Ba. Su’Zi felt good about the standardized test and knew that she scored higher than her friend, Ro’Sa, also a Mi’Nr, seated next to her ahead, ahead in the ranking. Ro’Sa’s family status was untarnished, Ro’Sa’s father had not been a convict accidentally killed on a work detail. Su’Zi was lucky she was allowed to walk; the CA could have just updated her graduation status online and sent her a graduation notice.

Su’Zi felt proud of her schooling, and especially of her teachers who were volunteers from the mining community. There are always many volunteers to teach the mining community’s children. In Mi’Nr society teachers are held with the highest regard.

Teachers in a very real way participate in the collective life of the Mi’Nr’s on Dadr’Ba. In a way, teaching mirrors the retirement and birthing process. Just like birth and retirement there is a passing of a part of one’s self by teaching a child, it’s the passing of knowledge and experience from the teacher to the student.

While it’s difficult to put a finger on what exactly is passed from parent to child during retirement or birthing, it is often very easy to recollect who taught you something or where you learned of or experienced it. Mi’Nr’s seem to recognize this and treat it with an almost religious fervor.

Mi’Nr’s view the Up’Lndrs
[35]
who have allowed their children’s education to be programmed under the control of the CA, with disdain and their opinion is that Up’Lndrs are uncaring toward the education of their young. Mi’Nr’s feel that their educational system is far superior, though it’s not reflected on the standardized tests that the CA creates and administers to assess academic accomplishment.

The speaker, a D’En with a rounded face and a pot belly (from eating too much), was droning on about how important this moment is, marking the transition from being carried to being one of the carriers, from not contributing, to contributing to the forward motion of Dadr’Ba.

This ceremony marks a change of status, an increase in the level of respect, and an increase in responsibility. Su’Zi felt her face flush and heat boil up inside her when the speaker bestowed thanks and compliments to the CA as if the CA had been the ones mining the fuel and raw materials needed to sustain the ship.

The speaker made it sound like the CA single-handedly performed all the functions carried out by the crew. Su’Zi felt her blood boiling and almost ready to explode. She felt as though a hot spotlight was directed at her; she forced her tense muscles to relax. She can’t blow this; this is the proudest moment of her life. Her family and friends were watching, and the CA would probably love for a convict’s daughter to spoil a graduation. Just so the CA can use it to further their propaganda campaign to undermine the resistance. The resistance is the only thing that stands against the CA and tries to keep them in check.

Su’Zi knew she was on a watch list, and the CA was undoubtedly monitoring her closely, waiting for her to crack, gauging her reaction to the speaker.

Slowing her breathing, Su’Zi forced herself to calmness, still incredulous that anyone could assert that the CA was anything more than a gigantic parasite that had taken control of Dadr’Ba.

Su’Zi saw Dadr’Ba as a living organism, a living thing with people and machines fulfilling the functions of its internal organs, interdependent and cooperating on their own. They don’t need to be lied to and oppressed by the CA, an entity that serves no practical purpose in the life that is Dadr’Ba, other than to perpetuate and guarantee its own existence and dominion.  

The speaker, having been indoctrinated with the centuries of propaganda and political correctness, equivocated the CA with the crew and Dadr’Ba, when nothing could be further from the truth. The CA imposes a totalitarian system of control that directs all activity on Dadr’Ba giving the crew no visibility or say in the CA’s decisions. The CA twists reality, asserting that the crew couldn’t run the ship if the CA weren’t there to tell them what to do each step of the way. The crew is treated like pawns, slaves, and robots.

The CA claims credit while giving recognition only to those that serve and support their authority. The speaker, a CA official that oversees education makes a damning remark about the resistance and how the resistance is an anti-forward element that has cost Dadr’Ba millions of kilometers of forward motion, and thousands of work-years.

Su’Zi raged internally and forced herself not to psychically, or physically attack the speaker. She felt as though the speaker was speaking to her trying to provoke her, though the speaker faced the stands in the multipurpose stadium. Sector two’s entire available population watched; a close up of the speaker displayed on giant screens above, occasional cut screens showed views of the podium, the attending officials and of select graduates.

She looked around at the crowd seated in the stadium wondering what they thought of her, if anything at all, of her being one of few Mi’Nr’s in the graduating class and being the very last, the bottom of the social and academic scale. She wondered if they knew anything at all about her situation, was embarrassed for her, or pitied her.

Fortunately, the CA doesn’t publish convictions for participating in the resistance. They don’t want to call attention to the numbers or penalties involved and inadvertently bolster the resistance. The CA prefers to rely on rumor and word of mouth, reasoning that the resistances informal network communications will target only the resistance and their sympathizers.

Su’Zi projected her attention toward the crowd listening and feeling their response to what the pudgy D’En was saying. At first, she felt a cold chill from the crowd, but as the CA rep continued to drone on, she overcame the chill and allowed herself to feel deeper, she realized the cold chill was directed toward the D’En. Directed her way, she felt a warm breeze, with only a few isolated cold spots like scattered sprinkles of cold water hitting her skin.

Su’Zi felt a wave of heat and recoiled, she sensed one of the cameras recording the event panned across where she was sitting. She tried to close her mind and thought of Ba. He died while working literally on the front line of Dadr’Ba’s progress through interstellar space. Instead of getting recognized for his sacrifice, his entire family was penalized, because Prz’Nrs (and the dead) don’t accumulate seniority and mileage, which define the families’ status in society.

Ba was doing what he believed in, was caught, convicted and died while still helping Dadr’Ba reach its goal. He’s helped more than any of these pompous blowhard D’En bureaucrats, even if they lived to be a thousand. Ba’s life was cut short, which contributed to the reason she was in the last seat.

The CA notice for her to graduate had made it clear that it would be very easy to arrange for her not to. She would not graduate and not to get the CA funded body mods that come with this milestone in Dadr’Ba society.

Although born with basic Mi’Nr body mods, without the CA funded mods Su’Zi would remain, not an adult, without recognition as a real mature person, no matter how many distance credits she collects or age she reaches. Su’Zi wouldn’t even be a “she” though, in her mind, she sees herself as one
[36]
, the body mods that accompany coming-of-age are too costly for her or her family to afford, she would always be a “U’Ne”
[37]
or a “Per
[38]
“ neither a him or a her.

Su’Zi needs these body mods to become a fully functioning Mi’Nr, without them; she’d only be capable of menial work, be pitied by everyone and could wind up an outcast.

Outcasts are a shunned people, ‘ordinary’ people are afraid to associate with them, they’re considered physically or mentally defective or deficient. And many believe outcasts are criminally insane.

Some outcasts scrape together or steal enough credits to do some cheap black-market body mods, but the mods are usually of such poor quality and workmanship that they look even more out of place and deformed after the mods.

Outcasts often wind up withdrawing or dropping out of society and may fail to meet quotas in their menial jobs which could lead to forced retirement, some just disappear. A few outcasts can be found living in the dark corners of Ol’Tn possibly forgotten by the CA, but most likely left by the CA as a reminder of the brutal power the CA wields.

Ro’Sa nudges Su’Zi with her foot; startled back to the graduation ceremony Su’Zi follows Ro’Sa up to the stage. It’s almost her time to be recognized, the CA rep that had been talking earlier; the extra pudgy D’En has long since gone from the podium. He and the sector two’s school superintendent, also a D’En but not chubby exchange the student’s juvenile/school badges for crew member/vocation badges.

The announcer identifies each student by name and their new profession, along with their academic record and family seniority. When it came time for Su’Zi, she was announced as an apprentice carpenter and surprisingly, her higher than average academic record, no mention whatsoever was made to her family’s seniority.

Her apprenticeship assignment as a carpenter meant she’d be working in the mines.

Su’Zi returned to stand next to her seat, she and Ro’Sa hugged and patted each other on the back then waited, and on cue as a group, sat down watching anxiously as the announcer read the closing remarks.

Su’Zi’s heart rate finally began to return to normal, and she thought of her parents, wanting to call them, but the graduation organizers made them leave their TaC-B’s
[39]
at home.

As if on cue Su’Zi felt a comforting psychic connection as she thought of her parents, her brother, aunts, uncles and cousins and she responded in kind. She took comfort in that privately, within the small, tight circles of the resistance she’d be honored and above all she knew beyond all doubt that Ba would be proud of her.

As with all Ol’Dr’s or firstborns, Su’Zi’s alignment is more tightly linked through the parents to the grandparents, who she never met. Parents see or feel a similarity between the Ol’Dr and their own parent, so Su’Zi’s parents treated her more maturely, almost honorably and expect more from her as well. Yng’Gr’s usually born a year or so later are much more tightly aligned with the parents. Su’Zi is confident that next year when her brother Sa’To graduates, her parent’s pride will have a different flavor.

Sa’To was the Bo’Ba of the family, got more favors, more lenient treatment for infractions, and more displays of affection than Su’Zi got. But Su’Zi received a more mature kind of love, almost as an equal and perhaps in some ways more profound.

It was time to exit the Stadium, Su’Zi’s stomach was grumbling; the graduates were told not to eat for ten hours before the ceremony. She noticed the group in front of her beginning to rustle preparing to stand.

No one that Su’Zi talked to would say anything about what happens next and from what Su’Zi could tell nothing was told to any of the other graduates as well. All the graduates know is that they leave the Stadium and go to the Church for the Touch of God Initiation Ceremony. Nothing is told about what happens in this Ceremony, it’s not a CA secret, it’s a Church Secret, even more than that, it’s a Dadr’Ba secret, one linked to their very existence, and one that every citizen of Dadr’Ba learns upon adulthood.

They all stand and begin filing out of the stadium to a standing ovation. Su’Zi recalls the last words from her mother before leaving for the ceremony; she said: “learn from what you don’t know and think twice before acting.”

As the initiates grouped up outside the stadium, Su’Zi spotted something that froze her with fear. Then she desperately looked for a way to escape as five soldiers moved in from quickly opening gaps in the crowd of onlookers that met them outside the stadium. The soldiers quickly formed a perimeter around them. They were armed with riot batons, dual wielded, one in each of its primary arms, which in the hands of soldiers can be lethal. Su’Zi wanted to run but knew it would be useless.

Soldiers are rare, the last time she saw one was during the early morning raid when her father was apprehended and arrested, having already been convicted by the CA council without ever being able to present a defense.

The soldiers swept into their home in the middle of the night, using their great strength to force the door locks like they had been made of putty. The soldiers rushed down the narrow hallway of their cargo container turned camp trailer home closing and sealing Su’Zi’s and Sa’To’s bedroom doors with some strange material that held fast for hours then just crumbled away.

They knew just where to find Ba, who knew better than to try to resist. Even though they didn’t resist the soldiers stunned both Ma and Ba, and took Ba. They were in and out in less than a minute.

The raid had been totally unexpected. It was at a mining camp filled with psychically aware miners at the lower reaches of zone three. The CASS soldiers got away with it by using stealth mode soldiers wearing special suits that dampened the sound of their muscles firing, and being robots, were undetectable psychically. There were none of the usual D’En handlers accompanying them whose psychic presence would have tipped the community off to their approach.

All they left was their stench and an arrest warrant/conviction/notification tag that provided the computer link to view the referenced documents which had large sections conveniently blanked out, marked classified.

Su’Zi had never before seen a soldier up close like this, the expected response from Mi’Nr’s is to turn away or even cower, not to look directly at it. She studied the one closest to her, looking for a weakness and planning to report her findings back to the resistance after this was over. Assuming that the soldiers weren’t here to apprehend her.

Soldiers are robots; they’re bipedal with two primary arms and two secondary arms. The two secondary arms are usually folded neatly against the body and come into use when the soldiers need to go to high G areas, forced to go down on all fours.

The secondary arms, then allow the soldiers, to handle weapons while retaining the full range of movement while on all fours. Su’Zi noted that these soldiers had a vest or harness that could be used to carry additional weapons or supplies all within easy reach of both the primary and secondary arms.  

At first glance or maybe in the distance their silhouettes could be mistaken for an ordinary person, but on closer examination, it becomes quickly apparent, by the way, they move, their arm positioning (always ready to strike) and extra wide stance that they are machines.

They stand on a ball joint ankle on four broad toes that serve as an omnidirectional foot, which has no front or back. Their mechanical arms and legs are also extendable meaning that as needed they can grow in height to more than three meters.

Soldier’s hands are composed of reversible opposable digits on the end of arms that function equally well forward or backward. They’re topped with a head that can tilt but not turn, it has no need to turn, it has forward, backward and sideways sensors, enabling three hundred and sixty-degree view of their surroundings without the need to pivot, and makes it impossible to sneak up on one.

The batons they wield (the same can be said for any of their weapons) can be used equally well forward and backward on double jointed arms.

There was no way of telling for sure if the soldiers are protecting the initiates or preventing their escape, Su’Zi couldn’t even say whether the soldiers were facing the initiates or the crowd. Su’Zi gathered her courage and stepped out of the group of initiates toward a gap between the soldiers and in what seemed like a millisecond the two soldiers closest to her hyper-extended their arms, the riot batons also extending with a snap becoming a staff, blocking her path. She feigned naive astonishment and embarrassment “Oh! Excuse me” and retreated back into the group. As quickly as her way was blocked the soldiers retracted their arms and batons and returned to an on-guard posture.

When interacting with a soldier, it’s impossible to tell if they’re paying attention or not, it’s always safest to assume they are.

Neither of the soldiers that blocked Su’Zi’s path made a sound, except for the snap of their batons as they locked into the extended position. They only move when necessary and remain still as statues, their omnidirectional sensors enabling them to monitor their entire environment without moving a millimeter.

And they stink, these soldiers smell as bad as the ones that took Ba. It made Su’Zi’s empty stomach churn, a wave of nausea came over her, and she got light headed. Ro’Sa appeared at her side and guided Su’Zi back to the center of the group of initiates, away from the stench.

Su’Zi realized there was no way out, and she must not be in any immediate danger, telling herself that this must be part of the Coming of Age Ceremony that’s been going on for hundreds of years but not talked about. Then she remembered her mother’s advice “learn from what you don’t know and think twice before acting.” She must restrain herself, watch carefully, and learn, starting now she’s in new territory, she knows that she will survive and when it’s all over she will be a different person, an adult and a full member of the crew.

As she was coming to the realization that the soldiers are programmed to “escort” them, she heard the Church Elder that had greeted them at the front of the group confirm her deduction. “The soldiers are here to provide us a safe escort to the Church and into the Ceremony Chamber, there’s nothing to be afraid of.” The initiates formed up two abreast and led by the elder along the path to the Church, the soldiers forming a perimeter around them.

The initiates made their way the short distance to the Church following the Church Elder who walked with a limp. There they meet up with several Church Ushers that accompanied them inside. All the Church officials, were easily identifiable by their long white robes and inky black tunic’s with a small, single four pointed star and halo on the left breast and a much larger one centered on the back. Su’Zi, last, pauses a moment and looks back, which elicits a red warning glow from the crown of the soldier following up the rear. She turns and hurries to catch up with the rest.

They enter into the Church without the soldiers and file along the side wall to the back, then through a doorway, then halfway down a hallway through another door to a set of stairs. Down three flights and through a door and a corridor that seemed to cut back under the central part of the Church above, all this under the escort of the ushers.

They finally enter a large room nearly as large as the main chamber of the Church they first came into. This one they entered through the back and onto its raised dais. Facing across from them stood a large arched doorway with double doors.

Su’Zi could see that the door in front of them looked as though it had been closed and hastily barricaded. The barricade looked a jumbled mess, haphazardly constructed, using materials from inside the Church, mostly piled and broken pews.

This barricade was old, the surface sealants and plastics of the barricade were decaying, peeling and cracking, all appearances indicating that it hasn’t been touched in many years. Su’Zi began to think that this place must be a remnant of the Touch of God Event eight hundred years ago, a Holy Place.

It had been a long day, and the initiates had been told not to eat or drink anything after breakfast, it was now late evening, and Su’Zi was tired, hungry and thirsty. She hoped that after all the accolades from the graduation at the stadium that some dinner or feast was in order, but there was no sign of food and the ushers were nowhere in sight.

The Church Elder, a kind looking U’Te limped to the center of the stage. She introduced herself as Ra’Chl
[40]
and asked the initiates to be seated in the chairs on the right-hand side of the dais, old metal chairs bolted to the floor, reinforcing Su’Zi’s impression that this is a ceremonial place. Every effort made to keep the chamber the same for hundreds of years, preserving the look, feel, and orientation of the site for the ceremony that is to come. The initiates seated themselves and Ra’Chl congratulated them on their achievement and said that the ceremony was about to begin and soon after they would be able to eat and drink.

Ra’Chl continued, explaining that they were now in an ancient section of Dadr’Ba one of the few places where survivors gathered after the Touch of God. Ninety percent of all life on Dadr’Ba perished instantly on that day, and the rest were sick or injured to the point that many of them died of their injuries. But some survived, and we are the descendants of those survivors.

That day changed Dadr’Ba forever; no-one escaped the Touch of God, and the Touch of God raised the consciousness of all, and bound the survivors together with a shared purpose, through shared struggle and pain. Together they helped each other recover from their wounds and restarted the main engine that executed a fail-safe shutdown, having left the ship running on emergency and auxiliary systems.

The survivors became the seed of a new civilization. They became a society of the tough, and the strong, that know how to work together and sacrifice. They came back from death, helping each other rediscover the lost knowledge needed to run the ship and overcome the hardships and the pain of losing friends and family.

I will now show you a glimpse of that moment and with that, Ra’Chl limped behind a curtain on the other side of the stage. The lights dimmed, and everyone expected a holograph or something to appear out over the central part of the Church they were facing where the congregation would normally sit. 

Instead, there was pain, excruciating pain, paralyzing seizures and gut-wrenching spasms. Su’Zi could see nothing but a bright field of light as electricity raced up and down her limbs and her spine, her head feeling like exploding. All that was left in her supposedly empty stomach surged upward spraying the back of the chair in front of her. Su’Zi doubled over and collapsed to the floor, the pain vanished, but the effects remained; her body was in convulsions as she felt the floor hit the side of her head again and again. Finally, the convulsions subsided as she and all the other initiates faded into blackness.

P’Ko having been sound asleep in bed suddenly woke, overwhelmed with a feeling of vertigo, the room spun and twisted, P’Ko trying to reach out and stabilize himself rolled himself off of his bed onto the floor where he remained splayed out until the spinning stopped. Afterward he sat up wondering what happened for some minutes, and then crawled back into bed; feeling exhausted and fell back asleep.

Su’Zi didn’t know anything. If you asked her, she wouldn’t have even known her name, time had no meaning, but she gradually became aware. Not yet self-aware because, she was unable to recognize her body, or even if it existed, it seemed like she floated as if in deep space and that nothing existed in the universe. She gradually got the sense that she was tumbling. All was still pitch black, the tumbling increased changing from a tumbling in one plane into tumbling in many planes. Nausea came over her; a mental nausea building up pressure in her mind, ready to burst. Then she spotted what she thought was a light, flying past at crazy, changing angles. She focused on the light, grasping for it with all her will. It was difficult to spot, often she’d miss it as the tumbling caused the light to appear almost in random places and it was very far away.

Slowly, requiring all of her concentration she was able to catch and mentally grasp the light, the tumbling slowed and finally stopped. All that was in her universe was the light; she focused all of her concentration on it. She gradually realized that the light had been out of focus, that made it appear larger than what was, now as she focused on it, it became smaller and brighter.

Continued concentration began to yield information, Su’Zi thought of the light like a distant star in the vast expanse of black space. She just knew these terms with no worded definition, voice or idea, spoken or remembered came to her, from outside her existence, wordless, but the meaning was clear “Learn from what you don’t know” all these words or ideas she comprehended but would be unable to describe. She resumed her concentration on the light, as she concentrated and focused on the light it seemed to grow larger, brighter and closer.

It must’ve been a great distance away; there was no concept of time passing, she just concentrated on the light. The light being the only thing in her universe. The light gave her comfort and an inviting feeling, like there was someone there, a friend, waiting for her. The light guided her through the darkness, voicelessly calling to her and seemed to provide energy.

After a while, she was able to discern an edge or crescent as the light got brighter and closer. It began to look like a spotlight, and she could see the light, like a star, a sun, and feel the warmth from its rays. Su’Zi relaxed and basked in the rays of the friend, the light, the guardian, and the light engulfed her and along with that came her memories of Ba, Ma, Sato, Ro’Sa and others. Su’Zi realized the light friend was not Ba, but something or someone else. As she came to that realization, the light began to fade, along with the feeling of nearness to the Guardian’s presence, God?