CHAPTER 6
Despite his coworkers comments, Inati Sokwerth Heath was not, in fact Asthem’s romantic partner. Indeed, Heath was at least a decade older than him. Although this did not lessen their rapport, Asthem’s more impulsive and energetic nature sometimes surprised and outstripped the older Unfindle’s quiet but enthusiastic vitality.
These are facts Heath reflected on as he heard Asthem’s hurried footsteps clanging up the corridor to the engine room to meet him. ‘It seems one of us is always in a hurry to meet the other,’ he thought, ‘I can see why people might jump to conclusions, I just hope nothing bad comes of it.’ Concluding his own calculations as to the necessary adjustments to the negative mass generator, the older Unfindle turned to meet Asthem as he skidded to a halt just before he reached the door to the engine room, underestimated the distance needed to slow down in time, and slammed into the metal wall next to it with a loud CLANG!. This was an impressive feat as there were two doors, the first of which was not only wide open, but over 5 metres wide and designed for a whole replacement engine to be moved through if necessary. Heath was only grateful his younger friends scaley head seemed to absorb impacts so well. Asthem, for his part, did his best to look cool, as he usually did around other people, casually swinging the smaller personnel door open with his tail as he leaned jauntily against the wall Heath had just heard him crash into.
The actual relationship between the two was more akin to that of two siblings far apart in age, or perhaps that of an old, but optimistic, professor and his rebellious, cynical pupil.
How well-educated, middle-class people like Synthia and Heath ended up on ships like these was a mystery to everyone, perhaps even themselves. Heath had been around through multiple full changes of the crew save the head cook and the captain, with whom he apparently shared some personal history. Regardless Heath was a treasure trove of information about astro-physics, quantum mechanics and the history of the Dunwaru republic, and dozens of other Unfindle interstellar nations. It was said he had once made contact with an alien race and given them such an unabridged history of his civilisation that the aliens had immediately cut off all contact and placed diplomatic sanctions on half of all Unfindle nations who had left the homeworld, taking painful measures to ensure no information about their own planets locations could ever fall into Unfindle hands. Then again, it was said that the galaxy was made of ermite paste, you never could trust what “was said”.
Regardless Heath was interesting to talk to, if a little exhausting, he always had an anecdote from history to fit an occasion, and he knew the ins-and-outs of faster than light travel so well that he was on call to half the departments on the ship, and considered indispensable by the command staff, who had personally negotiated full benefits for him from the company. Unfortunately for him, the company was unwilling to raise his salary on top of supplying full legal, and medical coverage plus the pension. They had also used this as an excuse to hire less people in all the departments in which he worked. As a result, Heath was regularly overworked and was struggling to pass on his institutional knowledge to the engineering crew, who, though some of them were interns who were physics and engineering graduates from vaunted halls of learning and had full academic knowledge of the theory involved, lacked his experience with practical applications of those ideas.
Despite this, or perhaps because of this, Heath seemed content in socialising with Asthem, a largely unschooled workman by comparison, who seldom asked him physics questions and was far more interested in his personal history and his knowledge of Unfindle history. They bonded over their shared disdain for the upper management and dissatisfaction with the status of the Dunwaran government.
“Hello Twig” said Heath, “I see you’re eager to get to our afternoons recreations, but try not to dent the hull too badly, those poor lads Avon and Aigean at maintenance have enough on their plates as it is.”
Twig was a nickname Heath gave Asthem on account of his being stick thin when they first met, on account of a stint of unemployment the year before he had joined the fleet.
“Heya Heath, how ya doing?” Asthem in return. “Oh and sorry about the wall”
Heath moved his rounded rectangular spectacles down his somewhat stubby snout and walked over the rather dirty metal floor of the engine room to examine the wall.
The collision had dislodged some of the flaky paint from the metal wall of the ship, but nothing more appeared to be damaged.
“When you have a spare moment my good Twig, I expect you to come with me to repaint this.”
“Yeah, sure. In 2 weeks between sleep and watch shifts, I’ll get some paint from all those totally full storerooms we have.”
Heath chuckled, “Yes I know, you’re busy, but we do have paint for this, I checked the inventory yesterday when I was looking for spare paper for the UDSW meeting next week”
“Come on old man, does anyone even go to those?” Complained Asthem “I thought you were pro-slacking off?”
Heath waved both his front claws in a gesture that indicated a misunderstanding,
“I am in favour of working to rules, to exact specification, pro-slacktivism as the kids might say.”
Asthem gave a quizzical look “Then why do you get saddled with all the work around here?”
The middle aged Unfindle sighed and looked embarrassed, “I wasn’t able to prevent the last set of lay-offs, and the captain didn’t run it by me before setting off with this skeleton crew, This is a starship, if work doesn’t get done around here, the entire crew might die”
“So why do I need to repaint the wall?”
“Because the metal is mostly iron, it’ll rust if left uncovered for too long and that could lead to all sorts of damage long term”
Asthem laughed “oh right, yeah, I guess that makes sense” Internally he berated himself for not learning more about the ship during the year he’d been stationed on it.
“The last ship I was on didn’t have that problem, everything was chrome plated, shine actually started to hurt the eyes after a while”
Heath and Asthem started heading towards the cafeteria, where they would get their midday meal, technically it would be the first meal Asthem had eaten today, but he had eaten generously the day before and he was only really beginning to feel the bite of hunger now. In terms of ship time, it was actually close to midnight but Heath and Asthem were currently both on the night shift and in space day was what your body told you day was.
The walked away from the engine room, down the long corridor which ran down the length of the back two thirds of the ship, from the engines at the back to the great assembly hall which separated the working crew discussing their days and their duties. Past the rows and rows of storage bays, the prospecting hangers which surrounded the space leading to the engine room, the mechanics department where all the equipment went for repairs. Past the sealed doors of the specimen storage rooms where the organic life of strange new worlds might one day be kept. Finally the great open archways of the cafeteria were in sight.
It was something of an open plan affair, with a large number of round tables spotted around the interior of a large room about half as big as one of the immense storage bays they had passed previously. The seating was made up of small vaguely rectangular couches which lacked back support and caused the tail to press at an awkwardly upward angle when one took time, despite this they were cushioned and didn’t get uncomfortable for at least the first 4 sthlins. Thankfully the seating was of little consequence as they wouldn’t be staying longer than it took for them to stock up on food.
The food was passible, and hot. It was composed of highly processed ingredients with plenty of artificial grit to help with digestion. So Heath grabbed his appalling Ergolent Grub paste in Citric flavoured Pizz Cream, and Asthem ordered some Oslibra gravy deep fried lice, and when they got their meals they immediately joined the crowd of 30 like-minded Unfindles leaving the hall.
The ship was understaffed to be sure, but it was a big ship and its standard compliment of crew was in excess of two hundred. The full command staff was here of course, never failed to bring their overnight substitutes, because, Asthem thought to himself, rather sarcastically, their sleep was just soooo much more important than the common workers like Asthem, after all, if he or Heath messed up their work, the worst thing that could happen was the entire ship and crew being compressed into a gravitational singularity which decade into hawking radiation in minutes, removing their entire mass from space time as anyone knew it, or failing in that, explode.
Regardless, the pair made their way down one of the side corridors to the mess hall and into one of the workplace lounges, technically you needed to pay to get in but the maintenance crew hated the mess hall as much as the rest of them and had neglected to fix the electronic locks the last time they had broken. This would prove very bad in the event of a hull breach but that wasn’t too likely. So they sat down in the second lounge, and put on an episode of television to play in the background whilst they ate.
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The seats here had backs and cushioning, and even space for their tails.
“Ahhhhh” sighed Heath as he eased back into his chair. “I really should get those locks working again, but it’s nice have these chairs around”
“eh, what’s the harm it could do, to leave them a little while longer, it’s only explosive decompression” Joked Asthem.
“Indeed, what’s a few atmospheres negative pressure between friends”
Heath sighed again.
“Bloody stupid to depart with so few crew members, the Isom I knew would never be so brazenly foolhardy”
“Take your mind off work for a moment would you?”
Cautioned Asthem. “Have some food before it gets cold”
Heath nodded and they dug into their ground insect paste, fried laconis and savoured the sweet and sour sauce.
In between mouthfuls, Asthem said “So, tell me more about that novel you were reading, The Firebrand’s Temple, was it?”
“Oh, yes, that, haven’t had time to read it this month, but it’s quite exciting, the ancient ruins, the international conspiracies, so engaging, the main characters just escaped the Drengarian Compound, and now they have to deliver the secrets of the Einsprart society to the OSD”
“I thought you hated to OSD” said Asthem, “said they were the greatest monsters in Unfindle history”
Heath chuckled, “In the real world yes, but in the novel, they are whitewashed of their historical atrocities, not what I’d prefer but I have grown used to the suspension of disbelief for the sake of enjoyment.”
“So what was the secret they discovered in the book?” Asthem replied.
“That that the Drengar government was covering up the unique history of their Onikean neighbours to justify annexing them by claiming common heritage, whilst the Onikean government had been funding ehtno-nationalist radicals to suppress their opposition”
“Oh, a two sided conspiracy? cool”
Heath shrugged “it’s loosely based on the beginnings of the war of Antyen Secession, what happened historically, was that the old aristocracy had coordinated a war between both nations to try and get their old empire back, ended with Antyen ethnic group scattered along the borderland reclaiming a huge chunk of their old lands and declaring their independence, beating down the ethno-nationalists in the process.”
“Sounds like a fight between two ethno-nationalist groups to me”
Heath shook his head “The Antyen were a suppressed ethnic group, or rather, collection of ethnic groups occupied by military powers and bereft of land ownership, they did not expel other ethnic groups from the territories they captured, they merely reclaimed ownership of the lands, the ethno-nationalists wished to expel or exterminate all the ethnic minorities in Onika”
“What do you mean reclaimed ownership of the lands?”
“tore down fences, walls and other security systems, let the people in, burned deeds of ownership, deleted records of debt, opened the use of infrastructure to the small farmers who they also allocated tracts of land to farm without rent, most of the people who owned that land under the old regime either fled to other countries or agreed to join the new communities.”
“Sounds dangerous, how did they decide who got what? You can’t just go around violating property rights like that.”
“They were dangerous times, war was raging all around them, their oppressors were gearing up to exterminate them, and they were in crippling poverty from centuries of de facto and de jour discrimination in employment, land ownership, housing, prison sentences and even voting, they needed to defend themselves somehow”
“but still, why tear down all the barriers and such? Why break up their country?”
“That country had always benefitted from them, but always demeaned and abused them, in essence after years of being told they weren’t real Onikeans, they decided they should make it official”
“ Seems a bit melo-dramatic, How do you pull something like that off?”
“They organised. The lack of government aid had long meant they needed ways of feeding and educating themselves, so they had set up community aid societies, turned religious buildings into schools and Unio-“
He stopped himself before he said the word. The company had passive recording devices which flagged certain words as requiring a performance review of the speaker. He looked around and checked the darker of corners of the room, Asthem had learned enough about Heath’s habits to realise that this meant he was worried there were recording devices in the room. Paranoid in Asthems view, but these quirks were all part of his charm, the company probably recorded everything he said through his cortical implant anyway. Asthem turned the television up as loud as it would go and they switched to their workplace sign language. “Unionised their workplaces, organised networks of people whose jobs could get access to the materials they needed to make weapons and organised community militias to combat the escalating violence from ethno nationalists and police. Eventually as the war caused the government grasp on their regions to destabilise, they peacefully seized control of the institutions of government then formed peers councils to organise their disparate organisations into a proper revolutionary movement, sort of a semi-government, though not quite as centralised. Then they declared their independence, secured their borders through force, left just enough of a gap in their lines for the rival armies to fight each other, and held their ground.” Heath paused to rest his hands.
Asthem released his baited breath and signed back “How in the Watery Mists did they do they do that?”
“cunning strategy,” Replied Heath. “They made a temporary truce with the Onikeans, agreed not to fight them, until they had repelled, the Drengar, they filled the open countryside and forests with traps and hid away in the wilds whenever a force they couldn’t easily overcome came their way, The Drengar eventually realised they couldn’t afford to fight two enemies so they switched to repelling the Onikeans, until the latter had run out of resources to continue pushing into their territory, so everyone cut their losses and the Antyen were granted independence because no one had the political will or resources to attack them.”
Asthem cocked his ead to one side, wrinkling his long nose and squaring his shoulders in an expression of dismay, “They used traps, deception and sabotage to win their freedom? Hardly an ethical or respectable way to gain liberation” he signed.
Heath shrugged “They were under equipped, outgunned and outnumbered, they were brutal yes, but so were their enemies. I won’t say all of the crimes they committed were necessary, in fact many of those who fought would later be investigated for excessive brutality by their new government, some of them going to prison or sent to do compensatory labour for those they harmed but the alternative to fighting, even fighting asymmetrically, was allowing everything they had fought for to slip away from them, possibly ending with the deaths of most of their population, I suppose they deemed it preferable to push through the harshest times to reach a period of stability where peace could be established with their gains in tact”
Asthem nodded, leant back and pondered this for a time. The idea of breaking up your country because it was flawed seemed unpatriotic to him, but Heath had a point. Growing up in the second poorest region of the great city of Lagos, he’d had to deal with decisions driven by necessity before. At aged 16 he had broken the leg of a younger Unfindle who had tried to snatch away his shopping for the week, he didn’t have the money at the time to replace the food and he had parents to feed as well as himself, was the scenario just described not a larger scale version of the same logic?
“I’ll think about it” He replied, finally.
“That’s all I ever asked” Said Heath reassuringly.
He turned his head back to screen and gestured for Asthem to turn the volume back down.
The conversation shifted to more relaxed subjects, such as the Gilbraic Racket Ball leagues they had both seen the last time they’d made port.
Asthem was aware of the controversies surrounding the long-term health of the players, but he enjoyed the team cooperation and competitive spirit of the sport, and it was one of the few things he knew more about than Heath.
“So tell me again, why did the game cut off before the time limit ran out”
“Because the second judges declared the Filitetes team disqualified for violent misconduct, you cant be that overt when issuing a second tier demand, that’s a type three penalty, and they’d already been given 4 warnings, which is a disqualifying offense”
“but all he said was ‘you know how easy scales break under these hammers?’ that seems no more overt than throwing a pot in the ground in front of the man”
“Well, according to the 23rd article of the statutes governing protected speech, it is legal to break items that you own, to demonstrate a point, and the Racket Ball act of 1541 declares that anything on a primary judges desk may be treated as property of either team but according to the 4th article of those statutes making references to the capacity to damage a part of the Unfindle body in what might be considered a threatening context, such as when visibly armed is not protected and can count as illegal threat and intimidation”
Heath gave him a quizzical look “how is this sport so popular when the rules are so convoluted?”
The game was a fairly brutal and convoluted affair where half of each sides players attempted to use large hammers and clubs to intimidate the judges into giving them a large sum of money whilst each one’s private security forces fought to arrest one another and the other half of the players actually did the officially sanctioned job of using the clubs and mallets to knock a ball into the opposing team’s goal in the least swings needed to earn points. This was complicated by the fact that there was a second set of judges who would rate the level of deniability in each of the teams statements based on whether or not it could get them convicted for extortion in a court of law.
In a sense, this made it a rich mans game, which required a great deal of training in word play and etiquette as well as the byzantine criminal justice system of Dunwaru. However even those with little interest in law would still be able to enjoy the physical prowess of the field players.
This was actually how Asthem had learned so much about legal system of his country. Specifically the parts related to threats, protected speech, assault, battery, vandalism, extortion, and Racket Ball.
The game had been won by the Kambry Kerringalls, who had been losing until the racketeer section of the enemy team the Faldrevden filitetes, had made the aforementioned verbal gaff which had gotten the game adjourned early and a move of four points from their score to the Kambry team’s score, winning them the game.
Heath and Asthem lacked much attachment to either team, but they cheered for the winners anyway, it was fun to cheer for winners, it made you feel like you were sharing in their victory. Then there was a buzzing sound from Heath’s wrist watch, he looked down and sighed.
“it looks like I have to go meet with the captain, requested this meeting a week ago, I can’t be late now, may spirits of air and foam keep you Asthem”
The formal parting words surprised the youth, but he responded in the traditional way he had learned from Synthia.
“Ghosts of void and starlight to you Heath”
But by the time he had responded, Heath had dashed out of the room.