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============= = Chapter 4 = =============
The hours passed and it soon became dusk.
"How many suns did you see up there?" Goh clasped his hands together
eagerly.
"For the life of me, I cannot remember. I do know that there are three
moons in the sky, now, though." Stephanie's cheeks were rosy with wine
now. "They're unbelievably beautiful, and the sky is such a wonderful
crimson colour. Those rolling hills over there... they almost seem as
if they are part of the sky. The oceans here are the most incredible
green colour. I think I have seen that colour somewhere on Earth,
though."
The night was balmy, and the fire which they had started was not
overheating anyone in the slightest. Stephanie sat with her arms
around her knees, hugging them, and for some while she stared into the
fire as the other four talked about some debates they had had with
some other poltical factions that resided in the colony.
"The Pact are going to get us all into a _lot_ of trouble." Palm-Frond
said despondently. "Those authoritarians are going to cause everything
to come to a head against our own faction."
"They are certainly growing in power." Goh said through a mouthful of
food. "Their alliance with the Zealots has made them very wealthy,
which is ironic, don't you think? People supposedly fighting for the
abolition of money and private property!"
"Yes, Goh, I wonder who formed the Accord with them with us as a
member?" At the snap that Lutrin made, Goh looked very embarassed,
looking right at Lutrin, and then looking away into the shadows of the
grove nearby.
"To be fair, I consider this... 'Accord' with the other so-called
'Leftists' just an agreement of mutual disinterest in rach of our own
autonomous affairs." Goh complained quietly.
"Yes, but I wish they didn't have to come here so often, Goh." Rayan
chided gently. "What is their strategy for their so-called
'Revolution' again? Don't they wish to stage and insurrectionary coup
against the state and assume power over it? That certainly seems like
a new form of despotism to me."
"So there seems to be two different political factions that you are
talking about, am I right?" Stephanie spoke up after being silent for
some time. "You are talking about some people called the... 'Pact',
and some others called 'Zealots'?"
"Yes, that's right." Lutrin answered. "Goh had designs to create an
Accord between us Universalists, and the 'Pact', a faction that Goh
deems as on 'the left' here in the colony. None of us agreed to form
this so-called 'Antinomial Accord', and for most purposes this
alliance is really between him and the leaders of this other faction,
not betwen their organisation and ours.
The first group you probably should know about is 'The Pact'. They are
what Earthlings would know as authoritarian socialists. They quite
like the image of their old dictator and tyrant Brelje, who was no
unlike the Earthling Stalin---they purged a great many people from
their organisation in a factional fight, and those people are now,
sadly, deceased nad will never see the day we hopefully leave the
third dimension. It is a complete tragedy. Palm-Frond's favourite
phrase to use in oration against them is to refer to them as 'Red
Fascists', which is quite apt, really. The Pact is not against
immediately forming a state over which to ... fight against the
bourgeoisie, and suppress those who they consider to be enemies of the
masses and the revolution. They promise that the state will 'wither
away', eventually, but so far the process of this happening has been
completely undescribed and unexplained by any of their self-appointed
theoreticians."
"Yes, I have heard of Stalinists on Earth before, but I didn't know
there were extradimensional Stalinists, that is quite horrifying."
Stephanie's eyes were large with shock.
"Yes, well wait until you hear about the faction that The Pact are
very definitely in a proper alliance with." Lutrin took a sip of
wine. "The Pact have made an alliance with another faction known as
the 'Zealots of Negativity'. They are against money and private
property in words only, for they form part of the legislature here in
the colony, and fully participate in the state. They are very wealthy
and profess to be able to help our people reform their way into
transcendence beyond the third dimension. They think it wil be
possible to form a 'workers government' if we all just got behind them
and participated in elections that would sweep their party into a
majority of seats in our parliament, and this would help them, so they
say, slowly and gradually reform the land ownership and transfer it
slowly into the hands of the masses, which they envisage will lead to
the great transformation of our society beyond this physical plane of
existence. Although, much of their leadership are only full of bluster
and are very corrupt. They own grea tracts of land themselves, and are
probably not interested in giving any of that private property up at
all."
"Yes, the leader of the Pact is a woman named E. Lysenko, and the
leader of the Zealots of Negativity is a man named Giacci
Kautstein. You will most certainly come into contact with them if you
spend much more time here in the colony, and you will have to listen
to them go on and on about the virtues of their cause, and the
supposed weakness of our organisation, or 'federation', the
Universalists." Palm-Frond
"Rayan has told me quite a bit about your political philosophy,"
Stephanie looks kindly at Rayan. "Everything he said was necessary for
the improvement of both human kind, and the betterment of the people
of the colony turned out to be completely true, so I have no real
reason to question that all of you, all of us, really, are genuine and
earnest about your desire to achieve ... proper space communism."
Stephanie laughed jovially, een if she was quite tired by now.
Rayan could see that Stephanie was really quite exhausted after a big
month of adjusting to the artificial three dimensional space of the
colony. "Let's retire, comrades. Tomorrow is a big day, and we have
quite a bit of work to do. We are going to agitate those called up by
the Lot to be forced to the Sealed Patrons."
"I don't like the sound of whatever those are." Stephanie looked
worried.
"We had a pleasant evening," Goh suddenly became serious. "But
tomorrow you will find out what we consider wage labour here in the
colony. And it is not pleasant at all."
Rayan stood and dusted himself off. "Are you coming, Stephanie?"
"I think your bedroom is how you left it."
"I think I might sleep out here underneath the stars and the nebulae,
if you don't mind. They're so beautiful and I want to be able to take
them all in."
"Absolutely." Lutrin beamed. She also became standing, and with that,
Lutrin and Rayan returned to their respective rooms in the mud-brick
house, and the three left behind slowly nodded of to sleep around the fire.