The Foundling Saga: Revelation (3 page)

The weather was also in their favour. Keller ploughed on like the rest of them without complaint, hanging just behind Cormic and some of the other older men. He frequently found himself walking alone, pondering on the earlier events with some concern. Their rest stops were brief and it seemed everyone was happy to get moving after a short break, as soon as the mules had taken water and everyone had a chance to rest and perhaps eat a little.

Keller helped lead the mules to water when they stopped, but he was aware during these rests that the family were silent on the whole, and he noted concerned glances in his direction. It seemed to him that even the mules seemed a bit contrary and not their usual obedient selves as he watered them in the shallow stream.

They had just stopped again for a rest by some fruit trees. Several members of the family came by to touch his shoulder or show a kindness during the journey back. This was not unusual over the course of a week, but he could see that they were showing more concern and more kindness than usual. He felt miserable.

They weren’t far from home but would arrive in the dark, so this would be a longer rest to ensure they at least ate one hearty meal today. Keller again helped with the mules before he sat down against a tree for a rest. He looked over towards Nola, Cormic and several other family members who were in discussion around a new camp fire, away from the younger ones. Two of their men had been hanging back from the group and had now caught up. It seemed to Keller that they were presumably reporting on whether they had indeed been followed by anyone. Given that they continued with their rest stop, Keller assumed that they weren’t being followed after all.

Keller was in deep thought, when Nola bought him some soup and sat with him. It had meat in it. He looked at Nola surprised. “Well we weren’t there long enough to trade it all. So we all may as well have some now, we have plenty to take back for the others tonight”.

He looked at the soup and then at Nola who was looking down worriedly at her own clasped hands. “Thanks,” he said. “What’s going to happen? Are we okay? I can see you and Cormic and the others seem to be full of worry. So am I. Cormic said he would explain but he hasn’t yet.” Nola put an arm around him and pecked him on the cheek. “Keller, we aren’t sure yet if there is anything to be worried about beyond some Regents being nosey about you and your appearance. However, we aren’t taking any chances – know that, and know that we are taking precautions to avoid any confrontations again”. Nola stood up, “Eat up, it’s been a tiring day and we still have miles ahead of us”. She smiled down at him. “Don’t worry”, she added and went back along the track to the mules.

Keller felt like he still had unanswered questions even though he knew Cormic would sit him down later and talk to him honestly, as was his way. For now, he was grateful for the soup and sat upright to eat it. It didn’t take long to finish it and he ran the little pot through the steam to rinse it and sat back on a rock looking at the sky thankful that the weather was holding.

“An apple, Keller?”

Keller looked up as he recognised the voice of Merna, a girl his age whose father often travelled with Cormic on expeditions. The two families were close and supported each other, and Keller, for his part, always welcomed her company and liked her maturity, which he thought made a change from one or two other girls his age. “An apple would be nice, Merna,” he replied.

She tossed him the apple. He caught it and invited Merna to sit next to him. He took a bite, thankful for some thirst-quenching fruit, as opposed to the dried fruit they carried in their knapsacks.

“Did you enjoy the soup?” she asked. He nodded, his mouth still full of apple.

“You seem sad, Keller. What is going on with the elders? You seem to have caused a storm and they won’t let on why - so what happened back there?” Merna asked.

Keller swallowed his mouthful of apple. “I have no reason to believe I did anything. I just found myself being the object of attention from some Regents,” Keller said tiredly, between mouthfuls.

Merna could see how bewildered he looked. She put her hand on his shoulder and he turned away. He was clearly upset by today’s events and Merna seemed to make a decision as she looked at him with some concern.

“Keller, they are always on the lookout for healthy young men and women and you must be aware, my dearest friend, that you stand out in a crowd of Outsiders. Perhaps it was a mistake to take you along. Maybe we’ve all been complacent.”

Keller sat still, staring down at his partially eaten apple. He looked up at Merna. “I don’t understand. Why me?”

He was looking lost, and Merna persevered. “My father says they have the same problem as us. Their birth-rates are as low as ours. Like us, they need family members who will create the next generation. You have the old look. You are tall and healthy, untainted by the old winds that caused our population to shrink to a fraction of what it was a hundred or more years ago. You have no visible flaws.”

Keller looked at her. She seemed wise beyond her years and he felt her fondness toward him and saw her concern.

“But Merna, My family is my family. You seem to be suggesting that they want me to go across the barrier at the Arpo. They are different, so soft and weak, except perhaps the troopers who look like they have each sucked on a sour apple.”

Merna took her hand off his shoulder and sat down next to him. He liked her warmth and comradeship but he couldn’t return her sympathetic smile. He looked out to the woods alongside which they had stopped to rest.

“Keller”, Merna nodded towards Cormic and the others, “They will try to protect you with whatever they can. The troopers do the bidding of their masters – Let us not assume that this incident goes any further – they are just being cautious for your sake and for ours. You are part of the family and the family is strong.” Merna then put her arm around him, gave him a gentle squeeze and gestured towards the others who were getting the bundles together to move off.

Keller looked around and suddenly felt vulnerable. It was as though the firm ground, that he thought he lived on, was now swampland and not a permanent place to rest.

“Let’s go,” he said. They stood up to join the others, and shared a smile as they had to hop over a fresh pile left by the mule just ahead of them. This lightened the mood for a moment. Keller, however, felt a dark cloud had appeared in his life. He still had many questions. He again noticed Nola and Cormic, deep in discussion ahead. The sun would soon fall behind the trees and he longed for his bed mat in the security of his family tent with its familiar smells and home comforts.

During the 22
nd
Century there started a top-down decline of civilisation.

The world’s four most powerful economies were, for many decades, totally reliant on each other to ensure their mutual wealth. This mutual wealth led to a lack of internal strife and given the size of these countries led to minimal external strife. However, all four economies suddenly had a problem when one of them reached the end of their democratic way of life. For one major country, the economic life-cycle was to reach a point of crisis.

The USA had long enjoyed economic success, albeit with occasional pauses and short term downward blips. This success, however, encouraged democracy to start to deliver a lack of choice. When a party is in power during a boom, the opposition are never going to get a look in if they take opposing stances. Why would the voters risk a different strategy when everything in the garden is rosy? Therefore, over a long period of time, the opposition in a wealthy country have to move closer to the incumbent party and look for subtle differences to woo the voters. There was very slightly more emphasis on the health service, very slightly less emphasis on curbing immigration and so forth. In effect, each of the two main parties simple tinkered with each other’s policies. In the case of the USA, it created a vacuum in the southern states as migration from South America changed the demographics little by little and state by state until everything the two main parties stood for became irrelevant in part, to the populations in those southern states. The lobbyists found that they had been hedging their bets with the two main parties to no avail. A third party grew around the ‘Spanish occupied states’, as one less than polite northern senator referred to them. These states had a different style of lobbying and a different style of ethics and, importantly, a different style of immigration controls. This allowed a huge surge of immigration in to the lower states. In turn this then led to a very different demographic picture.

The limited early success of the Latin Democratic Party (LDP) followed the spread of the newer immigrants into state after state, as these communities continued to move around seeking their share of the freely available wealth.

Eventually the third party had a following big enough to make a difference. The two large parties cancelled each other out in election after election, with a few exceptions here and there.

The USA found itself with relatively inexperienced LDP government in 2138. Inexperience is not ideal in a powerful capitalist world. The other three powers initially viewed the government with some concern and not a little hostility. However, business is business and they then simply used their experience to try to take advantage of a world power with an apparently naïve government. And take advantage they did. They made gains at the annual round of trade meetings; they also started work on softening the USA’s smaller allies who, incidentally, watched the events in North America with some alarm. They took advantage in revising older treaties, and they took advantage on pricing controls, exports, imports, trade routes and so forth.

Suddenly, instead of four world powers co-existing with a relatively similar amount of wealth, influence and mutual respect, there were now three world powers. These were suspicious of each other’s predatory economic moves, as they all tried to divert and carve up the USA’s wealth, influence, allies and assets.

The tensions spilled over to the less wealthy nations – the second tier countries. These were pivotal in the world order in that they each had allies in the top tier. It was when two of these decided to fall out that the situation took an inevitable path towards world disorder. The Japanese, still allies of the USA, fell out with the United Korean State (UKS). The Chinese were proud of their junior ally, having spent decades influencing the UKS government and its people, long after unification had been declared in 2064.

A few ships fired on, some serious satellite sabotage, and even an incident on a UN Space Station several light years from earth, soon blew up into a violent skirmish on Christmas Day in 2143. By the New Year, the Chinese were involved and were then taken slightly aback when the still inexperienced USA government took the extreme view that they needed to regain self-respect and protect an ally in need. By March 2144, a seemingly inevitable war began. It had been many decades since humanity had decided to go hell for leather in destructive warfare. There was a definite sense to the wiser observers, that the governments of the day had long forgotten restraint and diplomacy when faced with a crisis such as this.

The resulting war led to a huge decrease in population. There was also a huge decrease in land space on which the remaining population could live. There were now large areas were travellers would suffer from the effects of radiation exposure within a few weeks of roaming through the scarred landscapes.

Some major cities were spared the radiation - most warring sides still had an eye on the need for post-war trading and diplomacy and, therefore, kept the finger off the nuclear trigger when it came to capital cities. There were tracts of land still suitable for agriculture and there were smaller viable populations in many countries. The world population immediately after the war, in 2145, was estimated at one billion but there was a steady decline from sickness and a lower birth rate than was necessary for growth. The earth’s population in 2170 was estimated at 430 million and declining slowly. This was five percent of what it was prior to the war.

During the wars, the capital cities, certainly in Europe and the East, rapidly closed their borders from the influx of refugees from ‘Outside’. They also made strategic decisions to clear areas in, and immediately around, these borders so that they had enough potential agricultural land nearby to ensure some food security for their populations.

In England, government, of sorts, was still based in London. A reasonable population survived here and the government and its people tried to isolate themselves from other external populations to some extent, given that some areas of the UK were tainted by the scourge of radiation. In the first year after the war, these Londoners soon found that some refugee groups were camping outside the new London borders demanding an audience with government representatives. To reduce the likely threat of these groups to the security of London, the government agreed to meet these ‘Outsiders’, as they became known.

The government advised that London was effectively closed. They did, however produce a Community Survival Plan (CSP) for, and with the involvement of, the Outsiders.

The CSP included the identification of fall-out zones where the Outsiders should avoid, thereby reducing loss of life. It included the promise of medicines, of agricultural advisers, and, for a crucial period, tinned and dried food from their own supplies to ward off starvation, and thus desperation, amongst the Outsiders.

These refugees had no choice but to disperse. The various groups of families had formed a loose alliance out of mutual need but they spread out and settled in various safe areas around London and some beyond that. They generally rejected the life of technical sophistication that had caused all their woes. Gradually over the decades they became reasonably self-sufficient with the exception of the trade associated with medicines.

Some places, such as London, were effectively satellite communities, albeit fairly large compared to off-world populations. The earth still yielded enough to be of use to some of the off-world populations who had already started to colonise a number of planets decades before the war. These Earth-based satellite communities provided a conduit for rare minerals, certain metals, animals, plants and seeds for off-world needs.

In the early years after the war population growth was very much controlled in many capital cities. This was partly due to concerns over supply of food and drinking water, and partly after a spike in birth defects. The birth defects were caused by contamination of food supplies and drinking water. This took a few years to bring under control. At the time of Keller’s birth, unregistered pregnancies were likely to result in the killing of a child, such was the obsession to keep the breeding population pure, as in contamination free.

This did however, not help the fact that part of the population was still dying off in contaminated areas. In London population policies had to change drastically to avoid an aging population without young blood to sustain it.

The Earth-based population also needed continue to provide people to help the colonies become sustainable. The Earth’s usefulness was under threat if these off-world colonies didn’t grow to help maintain the need for trade routes from satellite cities such as London.

By the early 24
th
Century, it had become an obsession of these satellite communities to seek out healthy, still fertile, young men and women from beyond their own borders. The reward for these communities was continued survival.

The fact that Keller had been noticed by the guardians, and identified as a possible healthy young male, would set in motion a series of events that would soon change the course of his life.

It was an irony that didn’t escape some people that a child that may have been subject to ‘humane disposal’ as a baby might now be so sought after for his healthy potential as a young man.