Withûr We Read online

  For my boys, Bruce and Will, and for my little one still on the way.

  Wĭthûr Wē

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  As it had since before the human presence, Aldra II slowly turned on its axis and its sun appeared to sink in the western sky. Land passed into shadow and splotches of artificial light began to glow. On the southern coast of a mountainous northern island, on the twilight border between the light and dark, the city of Arcarius nestled at the base of some foothills.

  The day had been warm, but a cool wind now swept through, promising a chill when the forever moonless night fully arrived. In the southeast of the city, encroaching on higher terrain, there sat a sprawling building built piecemeal, giving the impression of a pile of boxes stacked on and around each other. At the front entrance there was a wooden sign as cracked as the street running by it. Suspended at two corners from a warped wooden pole by two lengths of chain, it swung in the breeze with a soft creak. The sign said, “Nigel’s” in peeling white paint.

  A retractable dome opened up a large dining room and bar to the outside, and in it a party was winding down. Many guests dallied to finish a drink or conversation, and all made sure to have some parting words with Nigel’s son, Alistair Ashley 3nn. A tall youth whose large muscles had finished filling out a broad frame, he was obliged to look down when speaking with others. He wore a patient smile on his plain and weary face as he endured pleasantry after pleasantry from well intentioned folk.

  “I always make it a point to express my gratitude to our military men and women,” said an aunt with a voice quavering with age. “I’ve always said you give far in excess of the rest of us.”

  He smiled at her earnest doting. “We appreciate your appreciation.”

  She grabbed his thick left hand with both of hers and feebly squeezed as she gushed, “Our family is very, very, very, very proud of you, my dear.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  Alistair’s uncle shouldered in when he decided his wife had used up her allotted time. Roughly shaking hands, he said, “When you have some time, be sure to stop by and tell us some stories.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Absolutely wonderful what you’ve done,” his aunt said as her husband took her by the shoulders and guided her to the exit. When she was gone another filled her spot, but he noted with relief that the procession was diminishing.

  “Can’t believe you stayed for four cycles,” said a young cousin.

  “Well, I was learning a lot. And this way I’m no longer eligible for the draft.”

  “I’m up before the council in two years; maybe I should do what you did.”

  “Think it through carefully. It’s not… it can be hard. I’d look into something else first.”

  The boy gave him a strange look. “Well… you stayed.”

  Alistair shrugged. “Yeah… I guess… It’s dangerous on Kaldis. Consider all your options first.”

  His young cousin slowly nodded, his expectation of Alistair’s enthusiastic endorsement thwarted, and moved on.

  When the adoring children and fawning women and approving men finally left, Alistair made his way to the bar where his father, Nigel Ashley 4xx, was wiping the wood down with a wet rag. The mahogany bar was flawlessly smooth and polished, a distinct contrast with the threadbare carpets, stained walls and cracked doorframes everywhere else. He had paused to admire it when he first entered the dining room, impressed with what his father had installed while he was away.

  Nigel gave his son an understanding smile.

  “If I made it a small affair, we would have had about three hundred offended friends and relatives,” he apologized.

  “I’m glad they came,” Alistair replied, and as if to prove it he hopped over the bar despite his fatigue. Setting out a tray, he put some mugs on it and filled them with beer. “I’m just on Kaldisian time right now. It’s going to take me a while to get used to Aldran time again.”

  “Is it true they have 25 ‘time zones’ on Kaldis?”

  “Yes.”

  “That has to be confusing.”

  “Actually, most planets do it that way.” His father fixed a somewhat skeptical gaze on him. Alistair chuckled. “I’m not lying to you. Earth has 24 time zones.”

  Nigel tossed his rag in a pile of dirty laundry on the floor, shaking his head in a noncommittal way. The Ashley patriarch was of average height with a slight build that bent a little more every year. His youngest child was taller and broader than him when he left, but the difference now was astonishing. Though he had not grown taller, he was 18 stone if he was an ounce.

  “You sure did grow a body while you were off,” he said, laying a hand on his son’s shoulder. “You come from your mother’s side, I think.”

  “I don’t even know how much of this is me,” Alistair mumbled.

  Before Nigel could respond, he inclined his head to a poster, tacked to the wall, of a gentleman in military garb. He was perhaps forty cycles and was smiling warmly yet condescendingly at anyone who peered at him. Along the bottom were the words “Warwick for Mayor”. As he recalled, the poster would be covering up a stain from water damage.

  “I didn’t realize you were into politics.”

  “Oh, that. That’s nothing,” said Nigel, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. “Actually, you’d probably like him. He’s been harping on the bureaucracies non-stop.”

  Alistair nodded and hummed as he poured but did not commit to an answer.

  “Listen, Alistair, your mother and I are going to leave you and your friends alone now. Be sure to shut the roof when you’re done. We’ll finish cleaning up tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  Nigel gripped his son by the shoulders, still incredulous that his boy was so solid. He gave him a rough, manly hug, a firm pat on the back and then left, supported by a cane. His hip had gone bad while Alistair was off and he was waiting for his operation. As Alistair watched him struggle over the warped wooden floor covered by a lumpy carpet, he frowned with concern but was interrupted by his mother, Mary Ashley 1yt. She placed herself in his line of sight and enveloped him in a hug. He gave her stout form his own embrace and rocked her back and forth. For the tenth time that night, her eyes welled up with tears.

  “You stay up as long as you like,” she said and pulled him down by his muscled neck to kiss his forehead.

  “I’ll be along soon. I’m about to fall over as it is.”

  She inclined her head to be kissed, and he returned her peck on the forehead. She smiled once, looked him up and down yet again, and went off after her husband.

  Grabbing the tray of drinks, Alistair made his way to the far end of the dining room. There, by the railing overlooking the hillside and the precipitous drop to the sea, his six closest friends were seated in various positions: along the rail, on the floor, and on a few chairs at the table. Laughing, they moved in that sluggish way of the inebriated. He set the tray down on the table to a chorus of approving sounds. They each grabbed a mug, sloshing a little beer onto the tray, and clanked them together, sloshing a bit more. After the wordless toast, they all chugged. His swallow taken, Alistair licked his lips and sprawled out in a chair, holding his beer on his stomach and struggling to keep his eyes open.

  Having downed his mug already, the immense Oliver Keegan 3nn eyed Alistair and said, “I think the man’s no good for winger anymore.” Alistair smiled back at his rugby mate. “You’ll have to come up with me on the line.”

  Elizabeth, happy and shameless now, leaned forward from her seat on Oliver’s lap and poked Alistair’s legs, approvingly noting how little give there was.

  “Your thighs are enormous. And hard as rocks.”

  “Have the decency to wait ‘til I’m go
ne,” Oliver protested. He bit her on the neck and she squealed and slapped his mammoth chest. “Elizabeth dear,” he began in a tone of mock gentility, “if I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?”

  The others politely chuckled, but Elizabeth pouted. “That’s been used a thousand times before.”

  Oliver paused to search for the words which came to him slowly through the vapors of alcohol. “So, my dear, has your body.”

  An uproar ensued, with Jack losing his balance and landing on the floor. Henry nearly followed. Elizabeth laughed despite herself, though she made sure to give Oliver a good whack on the chest for form’s sake. When the laughter died down, no one could think of anything to fill the silence. They shifted their gazes between Alistair and nothing in particular until Gregory softly said, “Four cycles.”

  “Four cycles,” Alistair echoed, nodding.

  “Will you go back?” asked Stephanie.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Didn’t like it?”

  He opened his mouth but couldn’t decide how much he wanted to let out. Finally, he settled for, “I learned a lot. But I’m done with it.”

  “At least you got to be off,” said Oliver. “That’s something few people can say.”

  “What will you do now?” asked Greg.

  Alistair leaned back and with a self-satisfied smile said, “I’m not going to do much of anything for a while.”

  “Unemployment is outlawed,” Stephanie reminded him. “Idle labor is to report for duty to the Employment Bureau.”

  “My dad’s putting me on the payroll as an employee. I just don’t have any duties for a couple weeks.”

  “Must be nice!” said Henry, and the others groaned.

  Stephanie did not allow the merriment of the moment to stifle a disapproving look. Elizabeth tossed a crumpled napkin at him.

  Oliver raised his empty mug and said, “To a long awaited homecoming.”

  “Hear, hear!” was the general reply.

  Later, after the sun finally set, Oliver and Alistair were alone, leaning on the railing and looking out over the city lights and the occasional ship at sea. In the center of the city, emitting a soft and fuzzy white glow, was an enormous sphere: Arcarius’ power center, many of whose sections were dark. Dark, too, would be all corresponding sectors of the city. After a time, these dark sections would relight, others would turn off and the pattern of night lights across Arcarius would alter in response to the planned rationing.

  The wind was quite strong now, and it brought the smells of the ocean to their nostrils as they heard waves crashing against the cliff face many yards below. Alistair breathed deeply and sighed as he considered the view.

  “So what’s Kaldis like?”

  He turned to his friend. Oliver was so large as to be comical. About twenty-four stone and not far from seven feet tall, he was nearly too large to function in normal society. His face was almost a caricature, with a large nose and wide overhanging forehead, and his thick hands and short fingers hinted at an awesome power.

  “Sometimes I can’t even remember. I just remember drills and explosions and shooting… I want to think of Kaldis without the warfare but…”

  Oliver fixed a pained look on his friend.

  “No, it wasn’t all bad.”

  Oliver’s expression didn’t change.

  “There were some good times. And I learned a lot. I’m going to make that count for something.”

  “Is it really anarchy?”

  Alistair snorted. “Hardly. The image you have here is nothing like the real Kaldis.”

  “Did you keep a diary? Something we can see?”

  “I kept a holographic diary. We’re going to watch it tomorrow. Come on over and see it with us, if you like.”

  “If I can make it. Did you image The Ruins?”

  “There are a lot of ruins on Kaldis nowadays.”

  “You know the ones I mean.”

  Space travel being prohibited, few Aldrans, and next to none who were not military, had ever been to Kaldis to see the famous Ruins. They were the three million year old remains of a small settlement predating the human race, the only proof ever found that non-human intelligence existed in the universe, or at least had existed once.

  “That was my number one goal from the beginning. But my 3D imager is being processed right now. I don’t think they’ll allow me to keep all the images.”

  Oliver gave Alistair a conspiratorial look. “You smuggled some through though, right?”

  Alistair smiled but said nothing. They shared a quiet moment looking out over the city. A burst of fire, small and distant and trailing a long tail, appeared in the sky, streaking from over the ocean towards land, towards Avon on the main continent to the south.

  “Smugglers,” was Oliver’s comment.

  “I wonder what they’re bringing us,” said Alistair as he watched the offworlders begin their illicit landing. He let the cool wind flow against him for a few minutes more as he watched the fireball. Finally, after it disappeared behind a mountain, he stood up and stretched. Oliver took the hint.

  “Well, I’ll be on my way.” They clasped forearms in the standard rugby salute and farewell. “It’s nice to have you back, little buddy.”

  “We’ll have to play some rugby soon.”

  “If you remember how.”

  Later, when the slow moving roof finally closed, he locked the exit and made his way through the building to the section his family used as a home. His memory alone would have been enough to guide him through the pitch black hallways, but darkness was never a problem for him any more. He let himself in and found his parents sitting by the fire in the living room, enjoying the rare delicacy of a cup of hot chocolate. His father offered him a glass and he took it. Sitting down across from him, he sipped at the sweet, diluted liquid.

  “Your buddies really tied one on tonight,” his father said in a tone just shy of disapproving.

  “They kept it under control.”

  His father nodded and then shared a glance with Mary. Setting his cup down, Nigel leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

  “Your grandfather died.”

  Alistair confronted the pronouncement stone-faced, the cup of chocolate paused halfway to his mouth.

  “We wanted to wait until the party was over to tell you.”

  “When?” Alistair’s expression was still unreadable.

  “Two cycles ago,” his mother said, her eyes tearing up. “We had no way to tell you.”

  There was a moment of quiet. Alistair took another sip while the fire crackled and made shadows dance about the room. Then, abruptly, he set the cup down on an end table and stood up. “I need to get some sleep,” he announced and disappeared up the stairway.

  Chapter 2

  The restaurant Alistair’s father owned and operated was bustling with activity, like normal. For those few citizens with a license to open a private restaurant, it was a lucrative business. Not directly operated by a bureaucracy and treated with indulgence by the regulators, they had evolved into the centers of recreation and shopping. Under the pretext of food service, all manner of side activities had arisen to meet the demands of paying customers. The take-out counter for cooked meals had quickly become a grocery store. It was rationalized as uncooked take-out and was usually overlooked by the authorities. Whether or not it was actually illegal was difficult to tell, as the bureaucratic missives passing for law on Aldra were conflicting, but obeisance to the right authority made sure the operation went unhindered.

  As Alistair passed by the take-out line, he could not see the end of it. A series of glum and bored faces; of people raggedly dressed in clothes patched many times over; of mothers, fathers and children too accustomed to the waits to be impatient, it wrapped around the street and out of view. On certain days Nigel was allowed to price his food. On other days the Bureau of Agriculture, or any other which decided to involve itself, put a maximum price on food for the benefit of the poor
er citizens. Those days when the price was capped, the lines were long; on days when the restaurant owners chose the price, the lines were much shorter.

  With a backpack slung over his shoulder, he followed the well-worn street that wound its way to the bottom of the large hill, called Tanard’s Mountain, marking the southeastern most point of Arcarius. Near the restaurant lived many of Arcarius’ wealthy citizens. Farther down, the same shabby buildings lined the street, shabbier than he remembered.

  At the base of the hill, the street led to the Metro station. It was less busy now that the seasonal workers were heading for southern climes, and when he flashed his military ID at the entrance, he was quickly given free admittance, exchanging nods with the two armored Civil Guard who stood watch. After a descent down a flight of escalators, he picked his platform and waited for the car.

  Two of the lights over the platform were burnt out. A few of the wall tiles were missing and one still lay shattered where it had fallen. Successive waves of grime and wet filth caked on some areas of the floor, ceiling and wall, and the entire tunnel was filled with a musty and unpleasant odor. While he scrunched his nose in disapproval, he looked about and saw only one other person waited with him. She was an elderly woman, bent over and burdened with a bundle of something.

  There was some faded red graffiti sprayed across the wall. It was a short poem, part of which was scratched out. One creative soul had, by the application of some more paint, turned a couple of the letters into a picture of a man and a donkey engaged in an obscene act. A few other mocking comments in black were written around the piece. The result of time and purposeful defacement was that the original writing was hard to decipher, but he could read enough of it to know what it originally said: Solid, Loyal, Red and Blue/ Aldran workers through and through.

  The familiar phrase, once ubiquitous, felt as worn as the writing on the wall. Alistair had not heard it since he went off, and for a moment he wondered if some new phrase had replaced it or if it still made the rounds.

  A whoosh in the darkness of the tunnel announced the coming of the train. Soon after, its headlights lit the walls. Rounding the corner as it floated a few inches above the ground, it glided to a stop, whipping up a slight breeze to push the discarded newspapers and torn posters across the floor. It was nearly forty yards long and almost a quarter that in width, but it carried only a handful of people.