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============= = Chapter 5 = =============
Stephanie awoke on the ground next to the embers of the fire, from the
most refreshing sleep she had had in months. She could not believe she
had slept so well. Sprawled out on his back, with his hair completely
amess was Goh, and reclining in perfect repose, again reading, was
Palm-Frond.
"Morning all." Palm-Frond looked over kindly. "Sorry if he snored."
She gestured over to the heavily-breathing man attached to the mass of
black moppy hair.
"Did you like Earth?"
"I'm sorry?" Stephanie rubbed her eyes, she was still mostly asleep.
"Oh. Forgive me." Palm-Frond put down her reading. "I have been over
the border to transit to Earth several times, and I quite liked what I
saw. But I have been to other places on the surface of the planet and
saw great pestilence and misery, but I decided it was within the power
of humans to rid themselves of all these things."
"Many people supposed that that resources are there, but the will is
lacking."
"Really? No, I disagree, I think the answer is the same for all class
societies, the domination of being over being comes along with the
domination of being over nature. One may even cause the other, I would
put my money on the former case being true."
"You two have started the discussions early." Rayan could be heard
down the pathway from the house. "I need to do a little
shopping. Stephanie, do you care to join me? We can return and join
the others afterwards. I can even take you past a facility that
belongs to the Ministry of Labour if you'd like. You will not like it,
but we can travel past it as we go to the city, if you like."
Stephanie assented to the invitation, and after a short while they
progressed beyond the limits of the property, and began their journey
down a long and beautiful dirt road. Mediterranean bushes, hedges and
trees lined the edges of the road, and the two could see into many
rural plantations.
They passed similarly clothed travellers on the road---both of the two
were wearing cloaks and woolen-brimmed hats now, and the weather was
agreeable. A small man sat on the side of the road playing a
whistle-like reed instrument halfway down the road, and Rayan paid him
a small number of enormous gleaming coins.
"That seems like some fantastic currency."
"It is really not." Rayan looked a little mournful. "That person has
been there for some time now, I think he is waiting to be taken back
home. He, like us, is from the land of Gremano, but his home is far
from here. I hear he arrived here to work for a patron of some
court. Perhaps he was their fool. I do not know. He does not look
healthy."
"When will we reach this facility of the Ministry?"
"It is not far now."
Rayan, after some time, began to whistle a long, sad, and mournful
piece, and Stephanie could not help but fall into a slight trance as
she walked. The music was relaxing and pensive, and it suited the
rhythm of their pacing gait. Eventually they approached what looked
like a tremendous temple, replete with beautiful columns. But it was
emitting a strange, unpleasant noise. It was as if the enormous
ancient structure was a power station from back in Perth, on
Earth. The earth under their feet humed and vibrated unsettlingly, an
Stephanie could feel a small well of dread building up inside her. She
looked carefully at the building, and could see a strange orange light
shooting out from under the metallic doors around the side. As they
neared closer, the electro-magnetic-seeming hum of the installation
grew, until the sound was almost unbearable. It was almost a grinding
sound, not quite fingernails on a chalkboard, but definitely metallic
and grating in quality.
They circled around to the front of the building, and Stephanie could
see two soldiers standing outside the entrance, holding small pieces
of vellum.
"Salutations, travellers. Are you here to perform service for the
colony?" The soldier on the left sootd a little more to
attention. Both of them had been leaning aainst the wall, and their
helmets were quickly adjusted out of their eyes. Indeed, they had been
resting a little. Just adjacent was a single chair. Perhaps they had
been taking turns sitting.
"No, soldier." Rayan seemed quite stern. "We are a delegation from the
Confederation of Trade Unions, we are here to speak to someone."
"Very well, Rayan of the Universalists---I know you---but no games, I
shall not hesitate to throw you out and report you to the Accord for
meddling with the welfare of the colony."
"Blast the Accord! If I cause any problems or mischief, strike me
down, soldier. This is my cousin -" Rayan looked at Stephanie as if he
was trying to seek her help.
"Uh... I am cousin Stephanie."
Rayan seized up a little and looked terribly worried.
"That is exactly the sort of nonsense we are talking about. What is
your real name, Gremano woman!"
"Kookaburra? Of the ... Universalists?"
The soldiers relaxed, as well as Rayan, who exhaled very audibly.
"Very well, Kookaburra. You may enter. Along with the delegate Rayan."
The two approached the veranda of the strange military building, and
as they did so, their perception of the sky changed significantly. The
light blue atmosphere above them gave way to angry red clouds, and a
deep crimson halo on the horizon. The suns in the sky seemed to lose
their lustre, as if they had been blocked out by a great bushfire. The
air also became thinner, as if it was stuffy and toxic, and it
certaintly seemed less easy to breathe---had their altitude changed?
The doors of the installation were large, but they were wooden. They
were gilded slightly, but the substance coating them was peeling, and
had been for some time. The two bureaucrats with weapons got a really
good look at both of them as they passed through from the disgusting
crimson smog,, and into the orange-fluorescent chamber inside.
Inside was a hazardous industrial scene. Chambers of orange, almost
boiling liquid adorned the walls of the room. The chambers were long
and egg-shaped, and they possessed a small viewport which was rivetted
into them at head-height. The room was almost completely unlit, except
for the piercing orange fluorescence from the humming, bubbling
chambers. A woman wearing a strange filtration mask emerged from what
appeared to be a kind of control room at the other end of the room and
began to them.
"KTSSCHH!!---FFHello VVRayan. VVForgive the messSSHH. Thank you for KKCalling
ahead, when you SSSHaid a visitor from HHEartTHH, we were mossSSHT
anxiouSHH to demonsSSHtrate the parasssSSitism of the SSSHHealed
patronsSHH---KTSCCHH!"
"Yes, we better get out of the extraction area, we will follow you to
the control room, if you please."
"KTSSCH!---AbVVFFSolutely---KTSCHH!"
They scurried quite quickly into the control room---a concrete
bunker---and were met with real, Earth-like, harsh white fluorescent
ligh. The room was large, but cramped.
"Is this a space station, or some sort of nuclear power facility?"
Stephanie exclaimed incredulously.
The woman who had led them in removed her gas mask. "Yes, all of this
business is horribly toxic for our environment, but we do it all the
same because of the economics of the situation. It is much cheaper to
extract the apperceptive power of the workers for the purpose of the
projection of our artificial three dimensional space."
"Are you saying there are people boiling inside those pods out there?"
A man seated in front of the enormous stationary control panel bolted
to the concerete floor turned around from his dials and monitors and
answered, "I suppose they look as if the chambers are boiling, but
that is a physical analogue for the mental process through which these
people are having their subjective essence extracted. We can best
monitor and control the process of the drawing off of someone's
subjective spiritual essence by imprisoning them inside those
chambers, and using these big, heavy machines. Very simple mathematics
is only required, even if the machinery we use is archaic and barely
functional." He thudded the desk, on which his left hand was resting,
with his fist. The dials immediately around his hand jumped slightly,
and there was a strnage moan from the plumbing, connected to the
command panel.
"Should that be leaking?" Rayan inquired rather nervously about the
deep maroon liquid leaking from a thin brass pipe just underneath the
panels.
"What?" The woman answered a little impatiently: "Oh. That. Yes, of
course not, but we all know Scanlon and his cronies are not going to
pay for the upkeep of _this_ joint, especially since we are behind
budget, and probably without ever any hope that we will stay open past
the next year."
Stephanie cast her eye around the room. High up on the brightly and
severely lit walls were enormous circuit diagrams and flow charts
illustrating the function of this installation, and they were adorned
with small incandescent bulbs which undulated on and off at
times. Every now and then, she could hear the release of some fluid
pressure in another part of the facility, the first of such made her
jump slightly. The hiss was almighty, and everyone in the room had to
stop talking, so that they could wait for the din to be finished so
they could be heard.
"So, I understand you are here to see what we consider work in the
colony." The gas-mask woman turned to Stephanie.
"Well, I have wondered if working or wages were involved in this
society."
Rayan sat down beside the other technician at the control
console. "I'm sure your explanation will be much more enlightening
than I could relay." He said. He seemingly prepared himself for a grim
tale by crossing his arms and scowling a little.
"The way all of this simulated three dimensional space is project is
not without a pernicious form of wage slavery." The woman began. "All
of the atmosphere, all of the corporeality of the buildings, the flora
and fauna: it is all projected downwards from higher dimensions of
physical reality from inside what we call Extractive Units. Inside the
extractive units are people of our own civlisation who have been taken
prison by our state and are forced to perform indentured labour as
'Sealed Patrons'. It is a way of them working off thier prison
sentence that they would otherwise have to serve in this
dimension. The tragedy of being a sealed patron is that it actually
feels longer to be inside an Extractive Unit, even though one only
must perform a 40 hour work week in three dimensionally-perceived
time. The substance we are extracting is a single resource, and it
allows us to deliver energy to our political state in order to allow a
social class of people called 'Geometers' to control, say, the
weather, food production, arms distribution, and the operation of the
bureaucracy of our state. In fact, you could probably call the
Geometers of our society our 'ruling class' or the 'bourgeoisie'. They
are the ones who our political state serve. Our political state, with
its division between the Crown, the Bureaucracy, and the Legislature
serve this capitalist class---the Geometers."
"We shall show you how transmission of the energy stored from patron
extraction is done." The technician sitting down said to
Stephanie. The gas mask woman sat down beside her colleague.
"Hello yes, Central Command?" One spoke into a tube to their left.
Garbled, tinny noise emitted back out of the tube. "Yes, Major. We are
transmitting this week's apperceptive payload right after I finish
speaking to you."
"Are group seven variables looking stable?" The other spoke into a
tube to their right. Some sort of bizarre whistling sound began making
its way from the warehouse with the toxic air and into the control
room. It had the harrowing harmony of an organ. It was as if this
enormous system of hydraulic life-force extraction was being played
like a musical instrument, was building up to a demonic crescendo, and
the sound being emitted by these organ-like pipes were the cries of
agony of a working class having the essence of their freedom mined.
"Roger, Delta sector, we have accepted your encryption sequence and we
are ready for the transaction to be completed with the Sealed
Patrons." Another demonic harmony rang from the speaker tube the woman
had been speaking into.
The two console operators reached for what, to Stephanie's eyes,
resembled thrust levers of an aeroplane, and the operators, each in
turn, gingerly opened the valves of the facility by pushing the levers
upwards. The conrete room shook and spun slightly. Plaster from the
roof was set free, and powdered some of the incandescent bulbs on the
wall. The tremendous performance, the groaning, the screaming, the
wailing and the sobbing---all these sounds of exhaustion and utter
excruciating sadness and torture, were all extinguished within five
minutes. Both the operators sank into their seats with the orchestra
had slid into silence.
"That was enormous." The woman turned to her colleague. She seemed
afraid. "This batch of poor bastards must have been really healthy. We
just robbed them several months of piece of mind."
Rayan spoke: "You'll make your bonus. No doubt you will be duly
rewarded for carrying out this theft."
"Yes."
"Come." The other technician stood. "Let us deliver everyone locked up
in there home."
With bleary eyes, sunken cheeks, and sweaty hands, each person emerged
from their captivity in their extraction chamber. They were offered
some small meals that they were told they could consume at their
leisure. Some ate ravenously, some stowed this small give into their
travelling garbs, and others completely refused, if politely.
"Are you all from the city?" Rayan asked the gorup as they began
ambling out of the facility ground and out into the beating
sunlight. It had suddenly become oppressively hot.
"More or less." A young woman responded, taking a small sip of water
she had been gifted through someone's indignant refusal to consume
what they had been given. "Some were visiting here from Jou, and were
rounded up to do their service. Apparently the state records showed
theyhadd skipped some years of servitude."
"Really?" Rayan seemed taken aback. "People can now be compelled with
not even in their home nation?"
"It is certainly underhanded, this poor batch of Jousen people were
particularly healthy in spirit, so whoever they accidentally angered
or who had tricked them into coming here was very cunning."
The group of twenty or so reach the zenith of their climb of the dirt
path up the hill, and soon reached the city limits. Down, at the
bottom of the valley on the other side of the hill, lay a small,
currently sunny metropolis. The group paused for a moment taking in
the view for a short moment.
Stephanie finally got a close view of the gorup of poeple that she had
been travelling with, and saw that many of them had swaddled their
entire heads in ragged cloths, and had adorned their mouths and eyes
with metallic instruments. Over their eyes were thick spyglasses, with
deep black and brown lenses. Their mouths, through gritted teeth, it
seemed, were fed with breathing instruments. It was as if these people
were about to return to the desert. Indeed they were carrying very
threatening barbed weapons, and some of them seemed to possess
firearms.
One turned to the other, and warbled something wistful. They noticed
Stephanie taking an interest in their custom, and they both turned
their faces towards her. Their facial expressions were both totally
imperceptible to Stephanie, so she instantly grew fearful that she had
offended them, and turned back towards Rayan.
"Perthling." One breathed through their respirator. "We say, when we
are in the grips of the Nelen: Shalabaducchi."
"It means, we will overcome. One day, if not today." The other made a
hand motion of a flat palm touching their breast. Stephanie felt as if
whatever burden all three of those in the conversation had been
caryring had been released from their hearts. "Do not be afraid, we
know you live for the liberation of Malasrion. We too will take place
in the coming insurrection."
Stephanie smiled. "Shalabaducchi".
Stephanie realised these people used the extremities of their limbs to
emote. They signalled their appreciation of Stephanie's utterance of
their language with their symbol for smiling: index fingers and thumbs
drawn into a triangle.
When everyone parted, all the desert-people gathered and showed the
rest of whomever had been captive their symbol for peace and
rememberance: a left hand clasping a right hand making a fist.
"It is the symbol of childhood." Stephanie's new friends rasped
robotically. "TO be wrapped in carpet-garments."
As they left Stephanie realised that they were an exceptionally tall
kind of humanoid. They had been towering over the other bipedal
humanoids amongst them, but up until now, this had been impossible to
notice. Stephanie waved them good-bye with enthusiasm.
Rayan laughed heartily at this. "They have not the faintest clue about
what you are doing." He wiped a tear from his eye in elation. "You are
indeed a Perthling. They will tell stories about this day."