Chapter 15
..[ JACY ]..
After more than sixteen Years on the expedition, they were back. Well, not back, back. They were on Ũsumbĩ IV, the capital planet in the capital stellar system of the, well, The Empire. That is what the people had taken to calling it. Just that, The Empire. Nothing else. It was something she would have expected from Mativo, but she knew with certainty he hadn’t been involved. He had been furious, in fact, when he learnt about it. Calling his family a few unsavory words for their incompetency to come up with a name fast enough.
That had been the issue. No name had been offered when people started moving into the territories they had discovered and the colonists made safe enough for the rest of the people to live in. But everyone knew it was an empire of some kind. One person turned to two and soon enough everyone knew it as just the empire. They had decided not to change it, embracing it fully.
Ũsumbĩ IV was, as the name suggested, the fourth planet in the Ũsumbĩ System. The whole stellar system had eight planets in total. At the center was a home star, a K3V, with an expected life of two hundred billions years. It had only seen three and half of those.
Ũsumbĩ I was too close it had become tidally locked with the star. Ũsumbĩ II was an Earth sized planet a few million kilometers from the habitable zone. And had the largest deposit of Mutrium they had discovered in the twenty thousand light Year diameter region they had covered. Ũsumbĩ III, IV and V were all larger than Earth, around 1.5 times larger on average with IV being the largest. They were all in the habitable zone and very habitable. Ũsumbĩ VI was smaller than Earth but not by much. It was the second deposit of Mutrium in the system. And it was the only planet discovered to have stores of diMutrium. Ũsumbĩ VII was a Saturn sized gas giant, and VIII a Neptune ice giant.
All habitable planets were already colonized, and mining operations were up and running on the two planets with the Mutrium and diMutrium deposits.
Ũsumbĩ IV being the Capital had the largest population, numbering over five hundred million people, and steadily growing. Mativo wanted that number to be in the billions by 20 AU. The total number of citizens in The Empire capable of talking was around forty billion; Earth wasn’t considered part of The Empire. That number was expected to hit hundred billion by 20 AU, if The Empire didn’t expand its boundaries. It was going to.
Most of the expected new comers would be hybrid and human kids capable of accessing the Energy. They had finally isolated the gene responsible for Mativo’s resilience to the constant Energy use. But there was still an issue. Their expected growth potential wasn’t on par. Some would stand out, but Jacy doubted they would get to the same level as Mativo. With bioaugmentation, it was very possible to even surpass him. Unless he did something else crazy. Always a given where Mativo was concerned.
Ũsumbĩ IV had five main continents and several small islands scattered in the ocean. The three main ones were: Top, Central, Bottom, Central-Superior and Central-Inferior. Top and Bottom looked like mirror images of each other, being gourd shaped with the base ten-twelve degrees from the equator. Their tops were at the poles, and still covered in forests. Instead of being one on top of the other, they were one twenty degrees offset.
Central, the largest of the continents, stranded the equator at a roughly forty-five-degree angle. Placing its northern tip on top of Bottom, curving northward, and its southern tip below Top curving southwards. It had a roughly ellipsoidal shape slightly misformed to allow for two seas to separate it from Top and Bottom. Central-Superior was near Central’s northern tip, placed to continue the curve perfectly. Central-Inferior was on the opposite side of Central, doing the same. Both Superior and Inferior were noticeably smaller than the other three main continents, being a fifth the size of Central.
Top, Central and Bottom all had a local capital city of their own, with the planet’s capital city located on Central, and aptly named Central City. Superior and Inferior were The Mũtindas personal property. No one was allowed there, unless invited or one worked there.
She was currently talking a walk through the streets of Central City. She had wanted to see how life was for the common people. There were stalls, shops, supermarkets, schools, entertainment centers. She had passed by a park an hour before. On their ship ride down, she had been on one of the view rooms in nearly all Decks located at the front of the ship. She knew they all shared the same continuous view of the outside. And while there, she had seen several stadiums scattered all over the city. It was easy to forget that she wasn’t back on Earth. Every so often, she spotted hybrid teenagers roaming the streets, and she was sure she had seen a Sientian or two somewhere.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
She would suggest to Mativo they come up with a name for the hybrids. Instead of just calling them, hybrids.
..[ MATIVO ]..
When I arrived at the family estate, I’m just going to call it palace because that is what it was, I only found Mũeni and the palace attendants. Everyone else was off somewhere doing something. All for The Empire. For the sixteen Years I had been away, I had missed as much family gatherings. The attendance rate had dropped to around ninety percent as The Empire expended to its full sphere of influence. There had been several huge changes during that time, but the main ones were three. The least important, generation two of the Mũtindas had increased by four after two of my siblings decided to marry and generation one had increased by ten.
Bringing us to news number two. Father had stayed true to character and married two more wives; though his relationship with Mother had been reduced to one of friendship. And finally, Kalekye was involved in an accident, and it took over three hours for her to be located. She was dead by then.
Good news, she was not anymore. But three hours had proved to be a little too much for our brain preservation technology. She had had to undergo neuro reconstruction. She was relatively fine but still undergoing neuro therapy. She would come out as good as new; but with a few Days worth of memories from just before the accident gone. A small price to pay, I would say.
“Wow! You have gotten tall!” I told Mũeni after we finished hugging. She was a centimeter or two taller than me, and it was very noticeable, especially to me. “You are even taller than me now.”
“Yeah, I’m the third tallest now,” she said as settled back to her reclining chair. I took one of the chairs next to her. They were all overlooking the balcony, and further a near endless lake it could be called a sea.
“Not second?” I asked surprised, I had been the second tallest in the family before leaving for the expedition.
“No, people have gotten taller.”
“What number am I then?” Just how far had I fallen? Maybe I should have worked on height altering technology instead.
“Seven I think.” She picked up her glass of juice and took a sip. She must have picked up the habit as she grew older. She hadn’t been a fun in her teen Years. But we always kept so many juice packets around it was hard not to. Juice was my number one thing to budget for on my ships.
“Shit. Maybe I should stop shaving my head.”
“That wouldn’t help. Besides, you would lose your few beard hairs,” she said, laughing before she was even done with the statement. “Seriously, how many hairs are there? Forty? Fifty?”
“Stop making fun of my beard. It is unique.” I started stroking the few hairs at the sides of my mouth before moving to the chin hairs. “Don’t listen to her; she’s being a meanie.”
A few strokes later, “Shit.” Two had come off.
And Mũeni had seen it all. She laughed so hard she literally fell off her recliner.
After a few minutes, she got back on her recliner. But it still took her several more minutes to recover from the coughing fit that had resulted from laughing so hard.
“Still into competitive sprinting?” I asked her after I thought she had calmed enough to talk again.
“Yeah. I have thousands of Years ahead of me.”
“Really? Won any medals?”
“Not yet.” And she held up a finger as if I had been about to interrupt her. I hadn’t. “But I’m going to soon.”
“What else have you being up to?” I tried changing the topic. She seemed affected by the sprinting in a way. And true enough, her mood changed. Not happy, but it was still a change.
“I’ve been going to all these colonies with Mũtave. Shooting ourselves enjoying life there and streaming it all over The Empire.”
“Like a reality TV show.”
“Yeah. Without the drama, of course. But people still love it.”
“Are you sure there is no drama? We are talking about Mũtave here.” I was rightfully skeptical. Mũtave was socialite first, scientist second.
“Not more than usual. I thought that was implied. Anyway, her labs keep her busy. That ship is a bunch of research centers bundled up together and shooting through space.” She placed her glass of finished juice next to the book she had been reading before I came in. “Who designed such a thing anyway?”
“She worked with the designers to get the proper kind of ship she wanted.”
“We can do that?” she asked, perking up a little. “I want one too.”
“She still paid for her ship. Albeit discounted.”
“How much does one cost?”
“You don’t know?” She had to be joking. Every family member should be aware of how much top of the line ships cost. It was a bare minimum knowledge. “Where have you been for the last decade or so?”
“Have been busy?”
“Doing what? Have you even finished school?”
“I have a degree, unlike you. Even PhD. In Political Science.” She proudly boasted. But she was full of surprises.
“Political Science?”
“I want to be on the High Council. Don’t give me that look. I want to be there through merit and governance. Not by blood.”
“Political Science won’t be enough.”
“I know. I’ve being using the break to think of the next thing to study.”
“I see.” I watched as a grey white fish monstrosity shot more than half its body off the water before slamming back down. I guess no swimming in that lake. “Which planet?”
“I was thinking here. Other than Earth, no other planet has such a sophisticated political system. Maybe soon, you will discover one. Until then, I dabble a little here.” She was quiet for a moment before she added, “Though I think Dad wants to be the sole family political figure in this system.”