Dadr'Ba (8 page)

Staring at the screen showing Dadr’Ba’s advancement toward O’M, Pan thought deeply about Nu’Wa. She never shows her frustration, but Pan is concerned about her, he knows she has an essential role to play in the circle of life aboard Dadr’Ba. She handles all the arrangements before and after the retirement ceremony, but she’s not allowed to participate in the retirement ceremony itself. The Church has a firm grip on that process.

She has on rare occasions mentioned to Pan her frustration about having a closed door between her and the retirement ceremony. Aside from reviewing the retirement application, making sure everything is ordered, and the production schedulers have signed off. Nu’Wa interviews the applicants and schedules the room and coordinates with the Church, which performs its own interview and preparation sessions.

Nu’Wa is then in charge of the postretirement processing which occurs after the retirement ceremony. Only when the systems have totally cooled and show no detectable brainwave activity are the systems turned over to Nu’Wa for processing.

Nu’Wa sees them now utterly devoid of life after having interviewed them alive and well only a few days before. When Pan performs his “operations” he knows that they will live again. Nu’Wa sees the retirees as real people, tired and burned out with their lives. Still the retirees have love and hope and dreams of a better life for their grandchildren and being able to be part of their grandchildren’s lives.

But when Nu’Wa sees them the second time, it’s difficult, even painful, she only sees the once animated, as corpses that will never activate again, at least not in whole.

She removes the outer protective, sensory membrane, Pan knows the process, which in turn gets refurbished or reprocessed, then packaged and warehoused as does the other components; the muscle modules, joints, respiration system (used for cooling). The pump and hosing truss used for pumping the battery fluid which fuels the system, it circulates from the gut to the various active components and storage locations, then special filters remove the spent fuel, which in turn gets collected and defecated, collected and piped to waste treatment facilities and reprocessed back into useable fuel.

The miners have the most fuel storage capacity followed by the U’Te’s then least of all the D’En’s, but all have roughly the same operations capacity based on expected workload.

A retiree’s central processing unit and memory don’t get recycled, which forces the printing of new components or the extraction of dwindling spares from those supplies stored in cargo modules at launch. Their “brains” are considered Holy and the tenuous relationship between the CA and the Church remains carefully balanced. A retiree’s brain is returned to the Church which keeps them in a sacred, secured, catacomb monitored by both the CA and the Church.

The Church supports the CA by encouraging the people, the system, to work hard and long, obey the CA’s rules and not to retire too early. The CA in return stays out of the Church’s business and allows them a level of autonomy as long as they don’t interfere with the operation of Dadr’Ba or CA business.

Together the Church and the CA have agreed to withhold the true nature of the crews “biology,” the crew believes that they’re biological clones. The knowledge that they are “just” machines, robots or androids is considered too dangerous to reveal.

The “people” of Dadr’Ba look down robots, like the soldiers and consider themselves to be superior.

The Church’s reason for keeping the secret is religious and philosophical. They maintain that the Gamma-Ray burst that struck Dadr’Ba eight hundred years ago and killed all the biologicals, many of whom really were clones, was truly an act of God. This act of God gave life to the people, a miracle, a Holy Act. No less a miracle or Holy act than any dealing with biolgicals, making androids self-aware, it transformed them from machines into people and provided them a soul.

The CA reason for keeping the crews’ true nature secret predates the Touch of God. The CA guards evidence that some of the androids, even before the Touch of God, were questioning their maligned treatment as non-biological machines.

Before the Touch of God, a different class structure existed. The pure biologicals were on top, there were only a few animated at a time and they were only able to operate safely in a few restricted areas of the ship due to radiation levels, and they were expensive and difficult to upkeep. They ate specially prepared food derived from algae grown in lighted vats, textured and seasoned to make it palatable. Not unlike the processing done to the battery fluid fuel used by the crew today. The pure biologicals didn’t live very long either and died at best around a hundred years and constantly had to be replenished out of the ships stockpile which numbers in the tens of thousands (in preparation for arrival at O’M). But they held the keys to the kingdom, holding the highest offices and controlled all the functioning of the ship.

Then there were the GLC’s, back then there was only a single class, and they didn’t have psychic ability and were unable to birth. None of the GLC’s back then were D’En’s or Mi’Nr’s; they were all what we’d call today, U’Te’s. They ate the same food as the pure biologicals but were radiation resistant and lived much longer, as needed spares were pulled out of the ships stockpile, (this time numbering only in the thousands) thawed and revived. GLC’s felt superior to the pure biologicals but had minimal interaction with them.

Finally, there were the androids, which were not ranked, but considered a piece of equipment, part of the ship. They were divided into the three classes that exist today (except the D’En’s were not called D’En’s then, but were called Sci’Tech’s). To add insult to injury the androids were stronger and more radiation resistant than the biologicals, including the GLC’s, and even the lower models had computational ability exceeding that of the biologicals, but they were never considered conscious. Not even entitled to person status, the world was upside down.

The Gamma Ray Burst changed everything when it happened, many androids recovered, though some did not, but those that recovered and survived believed that they were alive.

Some of the survivors, the Sci’Tech’s mostly, an Android model with higher processing and more robust memory systems, knew or figured out the truth of their nature. But after the Touch of God, it was impossible to convince the Mi’Nr’s and the U’Te’s that they weren’t “biologically” “alive”.

When forced to face the reality of their true existence many of the “people” became unstable or fell into a deep depression or melancholy that almost always ended in death. The same that survived the discovery of the truth fell into a robot status that after a while under the new post-Touch of God social order meant that they weren’t accepted by the new “society” and eventually got shut off or terminated.

A new class system replaced the old, and the new D’En class quickly realized that to continue Dadr’Ba’s mission meant accommodating the crew’s ‘aliveness’ was the most effective and efficient course.

Now, eight hundred years later, we’re almost to our goal. We’re alive, and as real as any biological there ever was, we love, laugh, cry, want, desire, hope, we pair bond and even thanks to techniques learned from the Touch of God have children that inherit real, tangible traits from generation to generation.

We’ve even evolved taste and smell, that along with the development of spices, and a cadre of cooks, have made eating the processed “food” needed to sustain our lives more tolerable. Beyond that, we’ve evolved gender mods and methods of sex that align with gender identities that manifested themselves almost immediately after the Touch of God.

Pan didn’t know for sure, though he suspected. Nu’Wa had stopped by the school on her way home and watched the exercise yard as the Ko’Ka’s ran and played games with each other. Providing her solace, knowing that these youngsters are the descendants of the people she counsels, and she’s part of the system that brought these Ko’Ka to life.

Pan still deep in thought, stared at the panel showing the image of O’M when Nu’Wa entered the room. She stood watching him for a long while, oh how much she loved him, after a while she went over to Pan and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek and then on the neck. Pan reached up and caressed her arm and said to Nu’Wa “I think we’re due for a vacation.”

Su’Zi woke refreshed; it took a moment for her to realize where she was and for what purpose. She slowly realized she was at Pri’Api and Ti’Reso’s, in the room they showed her that she would awake in. Where she had met ahead of time and talked at length with Pri’Api and Ti’Reso about how to conduct the lessons.

She looked down at her body, not believing what she was seeing or experiencing. She moved without effort; everything felt lighter, and she looked “good.” There was a mirror on the wall across from the spare bed where she woke. She stood up and looked at herself amazed how beautiful she had become. She stretched and turned watching herself in the mirror and let out a little squeal of joy.

Then hearing voices in the next room reached over to the dresser and picked up the robe she had been provided and putting it on slowly walked out to meet her mentors for her first lesson.

The first lessons were exploration and familiarization. Gradually the lessons evolved into stimulation, and on to different methods and combinations. How to arouse, maintain, wane, ebb, and re-excite. How to tease, maintain control and finally to let loose and lose control. To guide, coax and push others to reset. To bring on and send a reset command from your core, cascading out to your extremities, casting yourself adrift as in space. To experience the mental and physical reset, the little death, that, when performed correctly, can result in momentary unconsciousness. Finally, to wake feeling fulfilled and refreshed.

Pri’Api and Ti’Reso were good teachers and also showed Su’Zi how to introduce variety and play, and most importantly, how sex fit into Dadr’Ba society, not to take it too seriously and not to cross the line reserved for your life mate, and your birthing partner. This line is where sex stops being sex and crosses from the physical to the mental joining of mates for the purpose of pair bonding and birthing.

Pri’Api and Ti’Reso only once allowed Su’Zi to witness their mental pairing psychically. Though physically intimate, what Su’Zi witnessed focused not on physical pleasure and gratification but something much, much deeper, a oneness that Su’Zi couldn’t put into words, and had trouble comprehending.

Su’Zi wasn’t allowed to participate, but witnessed from afar, and from that distance couldn’t distinguish the two. She psychically preserved only one, a small bright point off in the distance, not cold but warm and one she could tell, felt right and good. Su’Zi was awestruck.

Ever since P’Ko turned ten and his parents upgraded his TaC-B
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, from a restricted call out model, to an unrestricted call out model. P’Ko figured out how to remove it from behind his ear, stash it in his room and forward calls to his old TaC-B that he now wore and had disabled the tracking function on. He was thus able to roam and explore as he pleased with the tracker indicating he was cloistered in his room studying.

P’Ko would disguise himself using one of his father’s mechanic uniforms, carefully obscuring the hash marks across the shoulders
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.

His favorite, most interesting and safest from detection, haunts are the back alleys and shadows of “Ol’Tn”. Ol’Tn lies thirty meters beneath Nu’Tn
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(where P’Ko lives with his parents and brother) and is the original living area for Dadr’Ba’s crew.

Ol’Tn is crisscrossed with all sorts of ancient equipment, space barges, portable habitats, cargo containers, and a plethora of run down and broken equipment that had been dragged into the original construction tunnels and lashed together during the metamorphosis of Dadr’Ba’s from a migratory chunk of intra-solar ice and dirt into a starship.

P’Ko thought back to six years ago, when he first ventured down to Ol’Tn by himself, not sure of himself, making his way through the darkened streets. P’Ko had visited Ol’Tn even before that, with his father to get repair parts from the D’Po
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, P’Ko was impressed and amazed, he fell in love with Ol’Tn and the D’Po.

Despite the fact that for more than five hundred years, it’s been mostly inhabited by Mi’Nr’s, P’Ko felt comfortable there. The narrow semi-dark alleys and assorted space debris some turned at odd angles to provide structural support seem to P’Ko like art, he didn’t like the stark pastel and off-white, straight lines of the structures in Nu’Tn, they felt cold and uninviting, despite the fact that Ol’Tn was much colder than Nu’Tn.

P’Ko having never met a Mi’Nr before was at first terrified during his first encounter, but that fear was short lived as the Mi’Nr’s he and his father encountered treated his father kindly. And P’Ko, discovering that Mi’Nr’s possessed an enhanced psychic ability, feeling fond amusement directed at him. 

At first, the dim light of Ol’Tn frightened and intimidated P’Ko. His father warned him not to stray off, warning that outcasts and criminals hide in the shadows and roam the back alleys of Ol’Tn. Adding that “the surveillance systems we take for granted in Nu’Tn and keep us safe are virtually nonexistent in Ol’Tn.”

The Mi’Nr’s that inhabit Ol’Tn have natural night vision that makes it unnecessary for Ol’Tn to have brighter lighting. Now the dimmer light suited P’Ko; he had spent a lot of time training or discovering and exercising his night vision, although many in the medical community would have argued it an impossible task.

Self-trained or discovered his night vision wasn’t good at colors and had little effect on his day vision, not impacting his color resolution at all but it did improve his depth perception and distant vision.

He kept his enhanced vision a secret because all throughout his life he had been accused of being strange and different. He was even persecuted for it, which is very ironic because in Dadr’Ba society (being comprised of clones) people place a high value on being different.

As soon as most people are able, they make dramatic changes in their appearance and even pay hard-earned credits to change themselves to fit the latest fashion. Some even forgo spending credits on food seasoning, to save enough for the latest hair or skin color, or tattoos, or eye, nose or ear job, or some other form of body mod.

P’Ko, now sixteen, like lots of To’Ta’s his age was already talking about bio-mods they would like, and many of P’Ko’s classmates had prepared lists of what they want, having experimented with makeup, wigs, removable tattoos and even some (for those well to do) prosthetics from an early age.

But unlike his friends P’Ko favored himself with less obvious bio-mods. He liked the idea of hyperspectral vision (special CA authorization required), strength and cold resistance (not authorized for workers, like most U’Te’s assigned primarily to zone two), and cognitive abilities, (only permitted for certain knowledge workers) memory capacity, high on his list.

  P’Ko would find out later, that his parents had paid under the table for a cognitive boost when he was very young, thinking that it would help him with his slowness in learning to speak and read but it didn’t seem to help and was highly illegal.

His parents and those involved could’ve been fined, censured, restricted or reduced in status
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; even restricted or confined. All these years later they could still get in trouble because the CA doesn’t have a statute of limitations, for anything.

All this made making any further cognitive changes, like increased memory impossible, if his earlier childhood-mod were discovered everybody would be in trouble, just as if the crime were committed yesterday.

The CA justifies its totalitarian attitude, with its many rules, and equally many secrets, by saying that it is necessary to provide for a disciplined, well-ordered and functioning crew.

From the ordinary person’s perspective, the rules and secrets are applied unequally, and have driven a wedge between the different classes of people and created an enormous gulf between the CA and everyone else.

The privileged aren’t held to the same standards as everyone else. Resources, beyond the modest collective living standard, aren’t earned or distributed according to the level of effort, merit or impact, but assigned according to family status and position. 

Dan’Zu is a glaring example, he doesn’t even attempt to be discreet about his illegal, underage body mod, but brazenly employs his extra height to bully and intimidate his classmates. And it goes unnoticed by the teachers and school administration who are all D’En.

Dan’Zu’s case can be viewed as comical. P’Ko first noticed this watching Dan’Zu leading his gang from his perch in the stadium. Dan’Zu’s height job was cheaply done; it’s a legs only mod which puts his whole frame out of proportion. He walks awkwardly looking as though he’s walking on stilts and behind his back P’Ko has noticed some of the other kid’s make fun of him. Yet this didn’t make Dan’Zu less intimidating when looking up at him centimeters away and listening to his insults.

Other times the situation is so minor, and the reactions are so severe that it’s on the verge of bizarre. P’Ko’s mother, Le’Ta, sees this often, being a tailor, she has customers from across Dadr’Ba society. With only rare exceptions, all of her D’En clients insist on preferential treatment of their requests. She faces frequent threats, like “if you don’t get my alteration done by” such and such a date “I know someone that can make your life miserable and your husband’s job more difficult”. 

These situations and so much more like them have caused a growing discontent, and most people are beginning to complain (mostly psychically). The result has led to an increase in the number of scattered malcontents and groups coalescing into a growing resistance movement, something that hasn’t occurred since the equal job rights protests. The CA’s response has been to seek out and clamp down on the resistance as “anti-progressives,” (like Su’Zi’s father).

P’Ko didn’t look forward to what he expected the years ahead to be like, more than ever, all of the To’Ta’s his age are begging their parents to pay for experiments in the way they dress, different makeup, temporary tattoos, and for those still undecided, trying out different gender roles.

Only school issued uniforms are provided free to students and standardized work uniforms are issued to adults, stylish clothes, and clothes alterations are a common method of displaying the much-prized individuality a society of clones prizes and help keep tailors like P’Ko’s mother busy.

P’Ko had to acknowledge that regardless of what he thought of Dan’Zu and his stilted legs, Dan’Zu dresses well and is good with makeup. He (Dan’Zu) seems to have a ready supply of stylized clothes, makeup, and temporary tattoos. And he’s wicked smart when it comes to school work.

P’Ko saw that many To’Ta’s, boys, girls and pers (undecided) alike, appear to like Dan’Zu and even pump him with compliments which Dan’Zu relishes, not seeming to notice the coincidence that complements are often followed with requests for help with school work.

People can be so shallow, and impressionable, though Dan’Zu’s height job made him look ridiculous, he had a lot going for him, his obvious edge in scholastics, especially when it comes to calculation speed, memory speed, bandwidth, overall throughput; sort, search, and retrieval, is plain. The other students realize it too and take advantage of it.

Realizing that there are centuries of having to deal with Dan’Zu and his gang ahead, not just school years, but post-graduation, P’Ko would have to be careful how he deals with Dan’Zu. Dadr’Ba is a relatively small, closed society, and most people have long memories, especially regarding opinions they have of other people.

Although there’s a zero tolerance for violence, and a low tolerance for bullying, or similar misbehavior, it never seems to slow Dan’Zu in his pursuit of P’Ko. Dan’Zu treats bullying like it’s the way it’s supposed to be. Bullying and intimidation are the natural state of affairs, a cruel game and he laughs about it frequently, even in P’Ko’s face.

P’Ko knew he could get Dan’Zu to stop picking on him as soon as he submitted to Dan’Zu’s dominance. All P’Ko would have to do is play nice, load him up with compliments and always agree with him, but something in P’Ko refused to let him.

As much as P’Ko dislikes Dan’Zu and despises him, P’Ko knows that he must, somehow come to terms with this bully, and potential enemy, P’Ko’s stomach tightened and churned at this realization.

P’Ko avoided the clean, well-lit public ramp that offers vehicle and pedestrian traffic down to Ol’Tn. It and the others like it in the neighboring sectors were covered by extra surveillance that logs who and when people passed from Nu’Tn to Ol’Tn. His disguise, a bump helmet and an old pair of his dad’s coveralls provided a passable cover for the inattentive, but his obscured shoulder hash and partially disabled TaC-B would create an alarm with the automatic system when it tried to match the shoulder hash to the disabled tracking function in his TaC-B.

The CASS would probably not send forces to respond, but the data from an alert would be databased indefinitely whereas ordinary traffic data stays active for only a few weeks before being overwritten.

It crossed P’Ko’s mind that at least some surveillance systems were operating during the Touch of God Event, the thought of what they might reveal made him shudder.

P’Ko accessed the stairwell adjacent to the auxiliary maintenance elevator which ran all the way from the upper decks of Nu’Tn down past Ol’Tn deck one and its main street to the airlock that provided access to the mining zone.

P’Ko looked up at the landing above and noted the access door on the landing above was closed, as it should be. Dadr’Ba’s survival depended on a tightly controlled ventilation system. Even the vandals respected the need to carry heat from Dadr’Ba’s core quickly enough to prevent Dadr’Ba’s melting from within.

The only light came from the emergency exit signs, this stair, and its accompanying maintenance elevator rarely gets used now, its purpose is only for emergency backup when the new elevator and stair which is well-maintained breaks or is closed for repair.

P’Ko wondered what the CA must be thinking, how can they justify not maintaining an “emergency system.” He hoped that the other emergency systems, like power, are better kept.

The lack of attention did have its benefits, though, the camera outside the stairwell entrance was pointed away from the stair entrance toward the closed elevator door and loading platform.

Before exposing himself to the surveillance camera field of view in the stairwell, he used his pocket inspection multi tool and checked the camera positioning making sure it was safe.

Inside the stairwell P’Ko looked over at the surveillance camera dangling from its broken mount and pointed at the deck, scrawled on the wall beside it, along with a crude diagram, was graffiti saying what the CASS can do with its cameras. P’Ko chuckled to himself recalling how years ago, his first time through this way, he ever so carefully and slowly moved the aim of that same camera to allow unobserved access to the stair.

P’Ko exited the stairwell on the main street of Ol’Tn; it was safe from surveillance at least from cameras. All the surveillance cameras in Ol’Tn have a nasty habit of breaking, so much so the CA has given up on trying to keep them fixed.

P’Ko felt comfortable; he’s become a regular here having visited almost weekly for six years. Now, rather than going directly to the D’Po office to report for “work” he walked down the busy street, tool bag over her shoulder.

It was his favorite day of the week in Ol’Tn; it was trading day and everyone that had something to sell or trade or needed something was there. People staked out spots, showing their wares and hawking their offerings. P’Ko would occasionally pause if he spotted some old mining equipment, a tool, or scientific instrument.

His height, lack of hair, self-done skin tone cosmetics and the rest made it easy to pick him out of the crowd, but this was “Ol’Tn”, a lot of strange looking people walk the streets, and nobody asks questions.