Colonists - Leader, part 5
BREVITY COLONY CENTRAL SQUARE
January 22, 2184
Colonial founding of the colony city "Brevity"
Oum had given her speech, roused the people, and mingled for a short time among the throng of celebrating colonists. In their couple weeks since landing the death toll was low – less than 20. It astonished her. She'd heard of colonization efforts that had killed off over a third of the population within a week. Yet, here they were: colonists of Nile.
The Brevity was gone, having flown itself into Nile's star once it had been fully cannibalized. The colonists had agreed to name their city after the great ship which had carried them safely here. The colonist pre-fab buildings had all landed. New buildings had been constructed. Food stores set up. Farm lands were being mapped out and started being worked. To the southeast, not far from the sea she'd seen during her first trip with Pharaoh, survey teams had found what seemed to be a very rich iron-ore deposit that had trace amounts of gold veins running through it. In time they'd have their construction gear getting to work mining the trove. Despite the horrifying discovery of Nile's giant worms there had been no additional sightings. The “space cows” were remarkably docile creatures that had been easy to tame. The twin-jawed mega-sloths she had encountered when flying with Pharaoh were more aggressive but easily deterred by the Infantry's weapons.
For now there was much celebrating in the colony's square. Most everyone found a reason to delight in the moment. Except for her. She'd never fit in very well with what she had always called the “labor-class.” In old China, like many countries after the Final War, society had been rigidly enforced. You were whatever you were told you were: there was almost never an option to change what and where you served. You socialized with, had family in, and were married to whatever class you belonged to. Oum's entire existence had been dictated this way, despite the fact she had appreciated her place within society.
And what society is that? The PAC is not here on Nile. Now these things are only a memory. Her thoughts, in a way, felt like a betrayal. But her directions from Earth Command had been clear: this fledgling colony was one where she decided its destiny.
Oum had found her way back to the command building of Brevity. It was a no-frills pre-fab unit like all the others. Nothing identified it as being special save for the “Colonial Control Building” marker in several languages on the front placard. She moved inside and sat at her desk. This wasn't the building she called “home” - that is, it wasn't where she slept. Yet she felt most comfortable here.
Ilarion had been her shadow the entire evening, despite her protests. Now he'd followed her here. When she had lazily landed in her desk's chair – a collapsible thing that was designed for compact transport like so much else here – Ilarion spoke to her, “I will wait outside and stop any visitors. I know when you need to be alone.”
She nodded, “Yes Ilarion, I do want some time alone.” She then pointed at him, “And you go celebrate. I think there's a woman here who would love to spend some time with you.”
Ilarion's eyes shifted left as if looking for a lost item, “I do not understand.”
Oum smiled pitifully at him. Ilarion had never been one for romance so long as she'd known him, “Go be something besides a body guard for tonight, my friend. I would like to be alone, just for a little while.”
He seemed hesitant but complied without any additional words. As the building's door closed behind him Oum found herself in need of something to occupy her time. She tried looking at the latest orbital scans and was bored. Next, trying some meteorological reports reports found herself equally bored. She went to open a report on the seismographic analysis of their landing area but knew that too would send her mentally fleeing for escape before she was two lines through it.
In desperation she started going through the assorted music library that had been brought and communally shared by many of the colonists. Like anyone, she had enjoyed music herself. But unlike most she'd never kept her own library – the elders, her masters, hadn't allowed for it. It was a secret love and it had almost felt forbidden. Fortunately some of the Nile colonists had been from the PAC and had brought a collection of their favorite artists. The soothing sounds of a Tibetan tribal chant, with some modernized instrumentation, filled the room at an appreciable volume level.
At some point a knocking came on the door to the building. Ying Oum had fallen asleep in her chair, drifting away to the angelic sounds of a far-away world. She sat upright and looked just as the door opened. Expecting to see Ilarion, it was a surprise when Major Decatur came through the door.
“Major,” she nodded and stood, “What can I do for you?”
He offer a small but not condescending smile to her, “Keep late office hours, Advisor?”
“I am always available to ensure the survival of our people,” she replied.
Decatur walked forward a couple steps, one hand behind his back. The military man eyed her computer console that emitted the gentle Tibetan tones, “Doesn't seem like off-hours work to me.”
Oum smiled and paused the music, “I wasn't working. But I'm happy to accommodate anything you require.”
Decatur reached out with his un-hidden hand to press the control on her console that resumed the soft Asian melody, “I don't require anything,” he stated then showing the contents of his hidden hand. “But I would like for you to share a drink with me,” the man had brandished two brown bottles with colorful labels.
Oum started to object but the Major was swift in his movements. He had moved to the roof-service ladder and brought it down. He started to ascend through the small opening at the top. Once he'd disappeared through the opening he turned to look at her expectantly. She'd almost spoken again but instead just followed him up. She had no idea why she was entertaining this childish behavior. Didn't I say I wanted to be alone?
On the roof of the building, which was perfectly flat with a slight slope to one side to allow weather run-off, the Major popped off the small metal caps of the bottles. He stuffed the coin-sized caps into one of his pockets. He moved to the edge of the building and sat down, hanging his feet over the roof's lip. Decatur motioned her over and she followed suit. He handed one of the bottles to her, it had a very sweet aroma.
Decatur tipped his bottle and she did likewise, clinking the glass together, “A toast to the city of Brevity. We have beaten the odds stacked against us.”
She added, “So far.”
He took a pull off of his bottle, “So far, indeed. It's still something we should be proud of.”
Oum nodded as she sipped the incredibly sweet liquid. It didn't at all agree with her palate that had been crafted by bitter wines in her upbringing among the higher classes of the PAC. “Wow, what is this? And how did you make it?”
Decatur smiled, “Us Infantry grunts know how to bring a party to any deployment. Since there was so many supplies being loaded onto the Brevity before leaving Earth, it was easy to stash a few drinks away in place of less-important materials. But this is a hard apple cider. Do you like it?”
“I don't think so,” she said as she raised the bottle back to her lips for another drink. When she brought it back down she questioned him, “So you replaced items that were deemed necessary by Earth Command with alcohol?”
Decatur smiled at her, “Things like alcohol, which used in the right ways, are always necessary. They cultivate relationships and allow for a degree of relaxation. Alcohol is a suppressant – and humans have always found a way to get it wherever they go. The medieval Europeans had mead, the ancient Asians made rice wine.”
Oum was annoyed at his casual dismissal of Earth Command's very strict cargo and weight demands. What had he replaced for this? She silently berated herself knowing that while the two had disagreed on several topics, he had never proven himself to be untrustworthy or unreliable. That doesn't mean I'm still not annoyed by his cavalier attitude.
“This is true,” she said looking at the label of the drink, “But I hope this isn't a curse we bring onto ourselves. Part of me questions the wisdom of bringing something like this along. Are we bringing our sins with us to this new world?”
Decatur looked down at the bottle in his hands, then up at the sky above. “I don't think we're doing anything inherently wrong here, Advisor. In fact this is the most I've felt at home since Apollo.” Oum recalled that was a medium-sized colony world which had been destroyed by the Kamikaze; it had been Decatur's home before he joined the Mobile Infantry after its destruction. He continued, “Back then I would sit on the roof of our pre-fab: my wife, son, and I. We'd look at the stars; talk about our lives. I would tell him stories of my father and I, when I was a boy on Earth, of how we'd sit on the roof of our house outside of Dallas to look at the stars then. When I was that young I had never imagined I would ever go to the stars. All we knew back then was the aftermath of the War.”
Decatur raised the bottle to read its label before taking another drink, “Back then my father and mother couldn't afford anything besides a cup of water; a great deal of the old USA's industrial infrastructure was destroyed. Beer - real beer, not the home brew stuff our neighbors made - just couldn't be made in mass quantities so whenever it was available it was incredibly expensive. My family was far too poor for that.”
Oum looked at her feet, dangling a few meters above the ground below. She spoke, “It is incredible how similar we are – people that is. When I was young the War's legacy was the only thing I knew as well. I was born in a shanty town that was fortunate to be between large rice fields and a copper mine a few kilometers away. My father and I would sit on the edges of the fields at night, talking and looking at the stars. He'd tell me about life during the war. I can't say he painted a very flattering picture of the old US; a lot of fear and mistrust has been instilled in me.”
Decatur nodded, “It was the same for me as a boy. But that all changes when you are forced to integrate. When we left for Apollo we were on a mostly PAC-filled passenger manifest. My family were definitely the outsiders. But my father worked hard to prove his worth to them, and he taught me to do the same. One day – I must've been 19 or so – it all just stopped having a purpose: this mistrust of another nation's people. On Apollo, in many ways, we lived a better life than we ever had on Earth – we all worked for the same thing in similar ways. I ended up marrying a German descendant, we had a family. It was all good.”
Oum knew where the story went next, she didn't ask for him to elaborate. “It is an interesting legacy the people of Earth live with. Literally thousands of years of mistrust of foreigners; China is no exception. And then colonists come out to the tips of humanity's reach expected to immediately do away with that legacy of mistrust. I am genuinely amazed at how adaptable we can be. Until now I have never known anyone of the old world's western hemisphere, save Ilarion. And he seemed to only prove that the west's ideologies were wrong in the extreme.”
Decatur nodded, “We were taught the same. The East – they were the devils, the evil-doers. They started the war, they brainwashed their people: on and on. It's not like the West hadn't done its own share of provocation and manipulation.”
Oum looked at the face of a man who had burdened too much pain in his life, but who had a heart that was deeper than simply being a soldier. She had spent her life learning to read people so she could press them into service for the PAC. She could see in him that he was no tyrant. Her own mistrusting nature and misguided her about this man.
She fielded a question she'd secretly kept locked away – an uncertain doubt she never wanted to voice but inexplicably felt she could with Decatur, “Do you think we have a chance out here?”
Decatur nodded, “I do. For all of human history warfare has simply been two or more groups of people who simply refuse to stop killing each other. So long as we remember that here on Nile, we'll succeed. We will be humanity's hidden home away from home. For the rest of our species: if we could get the Kamikaze to stop killing us, then we have a good chance.”
“And if we can't?”
Decatur made a single shake of his head to the side, “Then I hope we have better weapons in the near future. We can't keep this war of attrition going on much longer. Hell, for all we know, it's already over for Earth. The alien bastards could've shown up a week after we left and annihilated our homeworld.”
“Would anyone even know we're out here, then?” Oum asked.
“With how paranoid EC was in my briefings, not likely. I don't think Fangrong or Castellan would have any idea we're out here. And if the Kamikaze do hit Earth, they'll be going through Fangrong and Castellan first – they're perfectly poised right in the war path.”
Oum suddenly found the cider to be much more palatable as she took a long chug from the bottle, “It's hard not to lose hope with an outlook like that.”
Decatur put a hand on her shoulder, “We are our own hope. We are hope. Look at us: beating the game despite the deck stacked against us. In a year's time we'll have newborns being carried around by gleeful parents, we have farmlands and space cows to call our own. Hell, we might even domesticate those big furry monsters we saw on our first trip down here.”
"'Mega-sloths' I heard someone calling them," she interjected.
"Stupid name, but it'll do for now," he said with his lips smiling around his bottle's rim.
Oum smiled as his optimism, “Let's focus on properly running water first. The recyclers are going to get old before too long with almost a thousand people to keep clean and hydrated.”
“Hey,” he said, “We've got a whole sea just a few miles south of here. Maybe we should call it the Sea of Ying's Tub.”
“Absolutely not!” she declared louder than she meant to. The Major guffawed before taking another sip from his cider.
“Nevertheless, Advisor, I'm glad you came up here to talk with me. I'm glad our little colony can, for tonight at least, celebrate a successful landing and happy settlement.”
“If you're right about us Major, about us being our own hope, then there will be many more nights of celebration ahead of us.”
“Let's just hope we have some decent moonshine by then,” Decatur replied.
“Wait- someone has already setup a distillery of some kind?”
Decatur eyed her, “If I know the Infantry – and even just frontier colonists in general – I can promise you one thing: someone is working on one, if it's not been made already.”
Oum sighed, supposing such things were inevitable. Though she did make a mental note that such a thing couldn't be allowed to get out of hand and to look into it later, “Then yes – let us toast to having a decent 'home brew' in a year's time.”
"Jamaica Couples" image found under a search for "Public Domain" images. No original artist or organization was credited. This image was hosted on Google Photos. I am not the original artist or owner of the image.