Annihilation and Sterilization - 1. Annihilation and Sterilization

A straggly mist hung low over the meadow as Gerrold trudged down the path toward his quiet spot near the healing spring. There was still a little snow high up on the granite peaks around the valley, even quite a bit on the sunny side. It’d been a cool spring and, now, a full month into summer, cool, drizzly rains continued to put a damper on outdoor activities, especially the children’s, who expected every summer to be filled with sunny days.

He’d been born on Marigold 3, but Gerrold didn’t feel at home here, it was too un-Earthlike, not that he’d ever been anywhere near the home planet. It was too far in the past, yet Gerrold didn’t feel this was home. The plants were wrong. There weren’t any conifers or deciduous trees, just trees that resembled different forms of ginkgos, early conifers. Gymnosperm was the technical word. Trees that might resemble those on Earth simply hadn’t evolved yet. That was the official opinion. Other plants were tree ferns and moss, mostly; and, the marigolds, of course.

There was one that frequented the spring almost as much as he did. It was the local variety. The kind that resembled marigolds on Earth the most; except the bright yellow flower head was actually a head and the yellow petals were hair covering a central mouth and small complex eyes spread around the mouth and around the head. They had three small feet that enabled them to slowly move about, but mostly they stayed in the same place while their temporary roots searched the surrounding soil for anything animal or vegetable; and there were the leaf-like arms and paws, which were full of chlorophyll to gain energy directly from the sun.

They were an oddity not found anywhere in the near universe except on Marigold 3; an almost perfect combination of the best things plant and animal, except for the stinging cells located on all parts of their small bodies. They didn’t produce enough venom to kill a human, but Gerrold had seen marigolds standing atop small rodents and lizards as their roots fed on the nutrient laden fluids produced by powerful digestive juices exuded by the other non-venomous stinging cells.

A larger variety lived on an island in the southern ocean and was big enough to kill a man and had done so many times before scientists figured out the root systems, full of venomous and digestive stinging cells, extending out for over a hundred meters from the main body. Once a barbed venomous stinging cell caught hold of a boot, the entire root system in that location seemed to grow toward the victim, increasing in speed as more stinging cells assessed the size of the prey. Death was a horrible, agonizing process because the powerful digestive fluids began to breakdown flesh and bone almost as soon as they were injected, while the venom only affected nerves within a few millimeters of the injection site. As more venom was injected, though, muscles were numbed causing the victim to fall to the ground. The head was almost immediately enveloped in new roots devoid of venom cells, but exuding digestive fluids from specialized cells at the tips enabling root branches to burrow deep into flesh and bone. Death usually occurred a short time after the roots gained entry to the skull and began to feast on the brain.

To Gerrold, the small, local marigolds were mostly a curiosity that needed to be avoided because they had the foulest odor he’d ever experienced. It was written in some technical journal or other that the odor attracted flying insects that were the small marigolds’ primary prey.

Also, they made noises. Disgusting noises like belches and farts came out of their mouths. Get a number of them in one area and a whole cacophony resounded among them, sounding as if each was trying to outdo the others in their obscene language.

For its part, the marigold Gerrold was admiring was looking at the human. It dared not go near, as a human could easily kill a marigold with one step of their huge feet. Yet, it admired the human for the amount of flesh it offered almost as a willing sacrifice for the eggs it carried. It very much wanted to deposit those eggs in the human where they would grow strong devouring soft flesh, tough sinew, and strong bone until finally emerging into the light, their host nothing much more than a puddle of inedible waste. Marigolds rarely had the opportunity to deposit their eggs inside a human, but it wasn’t unknown.

Gerrold sat on a rock and pondered the marigold before him. It burped and he had the strangest feeling that he needed to move to the other side of the spring.

Imli, his husband of five years, was late. They agreed to meet at the sun’s zenith, but it was at least a full hour past. The Tslicoss were two weeks out, yet the few people left on Marigold 3 were preparing for a meaningless battle. Imli, as assistant commander of the defense force, a meaningless title in the face of an invincible enemy, was probably tied up in some futile meeting on disposition of forces. Imli had recommended bringing all the people to one place, but that was overruled in some obscure belief dispersion of forces would give Marigold 3 a better chance in the coming battle.

Gerrold looked down the valley. Loud voices were being carried on a light up valley breeze. Someone was in need of the spring. It gave the people their only chance against rotting fever. It was caused by an indigenous virus that, at the initial colonization, didn’t even affect humans, but over the past five thousand years had slowly evolved into a potent killer. From a population of over ten million only twenty years ago, there were less than thirty-six thousand to mount an insignificant defense. The spring didn’t give immunity, only a temporary cure.

Gerrold looked down from his rocky perch at the west end of the mineral rich cooling pool, that for some unexplained reason, sometimes healed and destroyed all traces of the rotting virus. Without a dip in the pool, the victim was going to die. A chance was a chance to be taken. There were five of them. A priest, there was always a priest; a woman, probably the mother; two strong men, maybe father and older brother or uncle; and a young boy, maybe a year before achieving maturity and offering his foreskin at a community welcoming.

The boy was naked and covered in red, seeping welts that were the hallmark of the disease. There was no sign of blood seeping from the mouth, ears, nose, or, for a boy, the penis. That was good, as the disease had yet to successfully internalize itself. The healing spring had a chance to work its magic.

The priest stopped at the edge of the pool. He knew Gerrold. Everyone knew Gerrold.

“We have a boy in need of healing,” the priest sad. He was no more than twenty with eyes full of fear. His gods were not protecting him or Marigold 3 from the coming Tslicoss onslaught, as his gods were no help against the virus. Few remained loyal to his religion and one more family was close to knowing the priest’s gods didn’t listen no matter how hard you prayed.

“Shouldn’t you be at your defense post?” Gerrold asked. He knew that would give them pause. To defend their home or to heal their child, that was a big question for people unused to battle, whether against an intergalactic menace or a deadly virus.

“My son will die without the water,” the mother said. She was middle-aged. She had other, older children. This was her baby. She would give her life for this child.

“Perhaps I should take the boy into the water,” Gerrold said. They all looked at him. He was a teacher, but he also spoke against defending their home. They knew his words, “There is nothing worth fighting for by raising arms against the Tslicoss. They will obliterate you. At least under subjugation, you have a chance to continue living here. Once the Tslicoss know about the virus, they might be willing to help eradicate it.” Yet, no one heeded his words.

Yet, Gerrold offered them a chance. They knew he lived up here, maybe further up in the mountains where, it was rumored, the wolves and wild dogs welcomed him into their midst fearing his magic. They could leave the boy in his care. They could say goodbye to the child. They would not be soiled by associating with the traitor.

“You will send him back, if he is cured?” the mother asked. The men set the boy’s litter at the side of the pool near where the marigold once stood, but was now nowhere to be seen.

“Of course, I have no need of a boy child,” Gerrold said. Someone to talk to maybe, but why worry the parents with a stupid implication they would never see their youngest child again. They wouldn’t, Gerrold knew that, but it wouldn’t be because of him. The Tslicoss were coming to rain death upon Marigold 3. Annihilation and sterilization, that’s what the Tslicoss called their victories.

“Go back to your war, this is a place of healing,” Gerrold said. He thought of the words and wondered if it was the moment that caused them to come out of his mouth. Rather pompous sounding, he thought.

“You are marked with Knetchi’s eye,” the priest said.

“Go away priest,” Gerrold said. “If Great Knetchi had been watching, he might have done something about the virus before it killed nearly everyone on this piece of rock.”

“They sinned before their god and were destroyed,” the priest said. He was using his religious voice, the one he used to defend himself and his gods from their ineffective worth to the people.

“As this child sinned?” Gerrold asked.

The mother looked at Gerrold and then at the priest, whom she quite unexpectedly slapped on the face. She hurried away, caught up in her grief and the knowledge she just might have seriously offended Great Knetchi by raising her hand against one of his priests.

The other men followed, but at a slower pace.

The priest looked at Gerrold and then turned. When he had gotten down beyond the pool, Gerrold rose and went to the boy. He removed his sandals, trousers, and shirt. There was no need in getting them wet with the mineral rich clinging water in the cooling pool. Steam rose from the source pools up under the cliff, but by the time the water reached this pool, the temperature was down to an almost tolerable level.

When Gerrold picked up the boy, he opened his eyes and smiled. He may not have known what was happening, as he was too close to death’s door to resist. Gerrold carefully stepped down into the hot water and when it was just below his chest he lowered the boy.

The reaction was immediate. Muscles throughout the boy’s small body swiftly contracted, stiffening him in Gerrold’s arms. That was a good sign. The virus was still close to the surface of the boy’s skin. Gerrold lowered his arms, allowing the boy’s body to slowly sink into the healing water. He rolled the boy over onto his stomach and quickly brought him back. The boy sputtered healing water from mouth and nostrils.

Opening his young eyes, the boy screamed. This was another good sign. Life still held sway. Then he vomited and Gerrold saw the vile herbs the priest had used to calm the boy in an attempt to open a door to death. It was an old remedy. Simply, give comfort to the dying body, and when appropriate, give herbs to calm the soul and allow death to release the soul to the heavens.

The boy vomited again and Gerrold saw the stone. The death stone given only when the priest knew he could do no more, but why was the child here with a death stone in his stomach. Had the priest acted in haste? Had the parents convinced the priest to give the pool a chance? It was near heresy to not believe Great Knetchi could heal the boy, but here he was in Gerrold’s arms, not dying.

Suddenly, Gerrold had the strangest sensation. It felt like he was rising into the air. He looked at the pool and the water was going down, but he wasn’t standing on the rocky bottom. He looked and saw that the boy was being pulled away from him. He reached out, but the boy floated up into the sky. He looked around and he was nearly five meters above the surface of the pool being pulled upward.

Gerrold looked above him and saw a silver metallic surface hanging in the sky not more than fifty meters above him. There were two openings and the boy was being pulled toward one, while he continued toward the other; and, then he was inside. The opening closed and he fell hard to the floor. There was a burning sensation on his head. Then nothing.

Gerrold remembered little of his interrogation, as most of it occurred without his active participation. Mind probes, he would learn later, were used to delve into his deepest secrets. He remembered nothing of the removal of the virus—unbeknownst to him he had the virus and he was only days away from the first eruption of a welt—plus a few other indigenous pathogens that, while mostly innocuous, came into full bloom when the virus sufficiently weakened the immune system.

His first awareness came upon waking sometime later—actually a full month by Marigold 3 reckoning—in a suite of three rooms. He was in a small room with a single bed upon which he was lying. There was a furniture cabinet on one side and a doorway opposite. There were no windows or indications there might be windows. A quiet hum could be heard coming from some unknown source. He rose from the bed and went through the door. The boy was sitting in a chair eating a biscuit. A metallic cup with some sort of beverage was on the table in front of him.

“Hello,” Gerrold said.

“Hi,” the boy said. All signs of the virus were gone from the boy’s pale skin. He was wearing blue trousers similar to the ones Gerrold noticed he was wearing. The only thing he was wearing.

“If you want something to eat, you have to ask the terminal,” the boy said. He pointed at a red metallic, boxlike object about two meters tall and maybe sixty centimeters square. There was a glass panel on the side facing the boy and a keyboard extended from the box below the panel. “You don’t have to type anything, but you can if you want to. I’m Tomas.”

“Gerrold.”

“I know, you’re the teacher who spoke against the war,” Tomas said. His voice was still that of a child. His body was still that of a child, but adolescence was upon him. At the pool, Gerrold noticed a hint of body hair darkening in appropriate, private places. “You saved me.”

“I think that’s a moot point right now,” Gerrold said.

“Do you want something to eat?” Tomas asked. He held up the biscuit he was eating. “These aren’t that bad. The texture is a little gritty, but the juice is sweet.”

“Yes, I suppose I should eat,” Gerrold said. “You said I have to ask the terminal?”

A door opened and a robot walked in. Gerrold had seen pictures of robots, but this one was much different. It looked very much like a human, but the skin was a smooth, silver metallic surface and there wasn’t a face, just obvious sensing and, possibly, communication ports. It was carrying a tray that had a biscuit on a plate and a cup of beverage.

“I am Seven-Seven-One, your assistant during your trip to IVAB3.47.15,” the robot said in near perfect Marigold-speak.

“IVA?” Gerrold started.

“Your future home, all will be explained, remain calm,” the robot said. “You requested nourishment. Unfortunately, we are unable to replicate your normal nourishment items, but these will provide whatever is necessary to maintain good health.”

The robot placed the tray on the table. It looked—or rather it appeared to look—at Tomas, then turned and left.

“You’ll like him,” Tomas said.

“How can you tell it’s a he?” Gerrold asked. He looked around for something to sit on. When he walked around the table to where his food was and a chair rose out of the floor. He carefully sat down, fully expecting the chair to sink back into the floor.

“Because he’s got a thingy,” Tomas said. “The girl one doesn’t have a thingy.”

“Thingy?”

“You know,” Tomas whispered. He looked around the room as if his mother might pop out of a wall and slap him upside the head. “A thingy, a penance.”

“It’s pronounced pee-niss and it isn’t a naughty word, no matter what your mother told you,” Gerrold said. He hadn’t noticed a penis on the robot, but maybe he wasn’t looking in the right place. Just because it looked human didn’t mean it was actually human.

“She’s dead, you know? They’re all dead.”

“What do you mean? Dead?”

“The Slickos killed everyone, everything on Marigold, even the marigolds,” Tomas said. He didn’t look sad and that troubled Gerrold. “They call it A and S, Annihilation and Sterilization. We were saved because you were trying to save me. We didn’t have weapons. They said you are a pacifist. They said you told them there was nothing worth fighting for. They’re letting us live.”

Tomas was quiet, then. He sat on the opposite side of the table eating his biscuit and drinking his juice. Gerrold watched him for a moment, and then bit into his biscuit. It was a little gritty, but the juice was sweet.

“Who told you all this?” Gerrold asked. “The robot?”

“No, they’re here to serve us, that’s all,” Tomas said. He seemed pensive. He looked at Gerrold with his dark eyes and smiled. “The Zersk told me.”

“Who are they?”

“The terminal. That’s a Zersk, but it isn’t spelled like it sounds. They’re from Argötte. It’s a long way from here. In that language it’s spelled apostrophe-x-r-s-c. I was good at spelling in school.”

“I’m sure you were,” Gerrold said. He looked at the terminal. The screen came on and ’XRSC was displayed in large block letters. Gerrold felt himself smiling. It was obvious the terminal was listening to their conversation.

“The star pilot said he would come down once you came around,” Tomas said. “I guess it’s worse when you’re a grown-up. I’ve been awake for nearly a week. Yesterday, the star pilot took me up to the bridge, but you can’t see outside. The windows are in the recreation room, but we’re not allowed there. We’re cargo.”

“The star pilot?” Gerrold asked. He felt out of place. They were cargo? As in freight? Something was definitely going on, but, then, he’d only been awake for less than an hour, maybe this was still a dream.

“He’s from Orcol,” Tomas said. “It’s in the Argöttean Federation. All the star pilots are from Orcol. You’ll like him. He’s like us.”

“Like us? Human?”

“Well, yeah, that, too, and they’re very much like us, except he’s kinda tall. Taller than you and his hair is lighter, it’s kind like brown. Have you ever seen someone with brown hair? He says that’s because he’s from Orcol.”

“But, he’s like us, too,” Tomas whispered. His nervous eyes flitted around the room, again, as if worried punishment would be swift and severe.

“I know Imli was your husband,” Tomas whispered. “I saw you on video at my school, before you came out against the war. He was getting an award for something.”

“Ah, the virus eradication project, yes he received an award for discovering the healing pool.”

“Yeah, that was it. Was that the same pool we were in when we were saved?”

“Yes, that’s where we were,” Gerrold said. He looked at Tomas and wondered how the child knew he was attracted to other boys. He was simply too young to know. Gerrold didn’t figure it out until he received his teaching certificate and was sent to Walkerville to be the teacher. Imli was there as an assistant community administrator.

They’d met at a gathering. He had been reluctant to go, as gatherings were not something he enjoyed. It wasn’t the dancing because he was a good dancer. It was the pairings because he’d always been paired with a girl and that made him uncomfortable for some reason. There simply weren’t any young men like him, not that he knew, anyway. The Walkerville gathering was different and Imli paired himself with Gerrold before Gerrold knew what was happening.

They danced all night. Drank themselves silly on the local dark ale; and, the next morning Gerrold woke up in Imli’s bed. At the next gathering, he and Imli exchanged silver armbands and were permanently paired.

But, Tomas was too young.

Sunlight pressed down on the gray sandy beach with nearly overwhelming heat. Gerrold sat under the woven reed lean-to shielding his eyes against the brightness with his sun-darkened hand. Somewhere out there across the water Tomas was waiting for their supper to snag a bare, unbaited hook dangling at the end of a piece of twine fashioned from lengths of dried naaga vine.

A purple land crab sidled along picking at windblown detritus. It stopped at Gerrold’s foot contemplating its chances of nipping off a bit of bloody flesh before the human reacted. It was an iffy maneuver, at best. It looked at the walking stick with the knobby end that could very swiftly shatter its shell. It moved on. The risk was too great. Gerrold was not a human to be trifled with.

On UMS star charts, the planet was identified as IVAB3.47.15, but Gerrold did not know what that meant. A database somewhere in the ’xrsc system knew what those alphanumerics said about this hunk of rock, soil, water, and organics orbiting the hot orb above him. All Gerrold cared about at that moment was whether Tomas was going to catch a big flatfish which might last two days if they kept it out of the land crabs’ reach or a couple snigglers which made only one meal. He looked at the purple land crab and wished those wily creatures weren’t so unpalatable. Now, a green land crab was okay, but they never came down to the beach and you had to come to the beach to catch fish.

What Gerrold wanted most of all at that moment was Tomas to come back to shore. There weren’t any dangerous fish out there, at least that’s what the ’xrsc star pilot said when he and Tomas were left on this out of the way rock in some galaxy so far from Marigold 3 its galaxy wasn’t much more than a speck of light on a long exposure telescope image. “There isn’t much of anything here, except for the land crabs and only the purple ones might nip you. This is a rather large island in a very big ocean. Evolution-wise this place won’t go through the dinosaurs to the age of mammals, so you don’t have to worry about any big beasties coming here to eat you. The ’xrsc have identified a few pathogens that might cause you problems, but nothing that will kill you. Of course, if you need anything, all you have to do is let the kiosk know your situation and we’ll help as needed and appropriate.”

Yet, Gerrold feared for the boy, who wasn’t a boy anymore, having celebrated his twenty-third birthday three weeks earlier. Gerrold was fifteen years older. They’d been here for eleven years and, if it wasn’t for the ’xrsc kiosk in their hut and Seven-Seven-One and his partner, Nine-One-Eight-Three, they might have succumbed to the possible prospect of never leaving this place.

Nothing was explained, ever. They were here. They would stay here; and, yet, there seemed to be no end to this confinement. There were no other people here, human or alien, just Gerrold and Tomas, the two robots, and the kiosk.

“Would sir wish some beverage?” Seven-Seven-One asked. He stood at the edge of Gerrold’s awareness.

“I have water,” Gerrold said. Why this day? Why did he fear for Tomas’ safety? The boy could swim, practically as well as any of the fish. “I can’t see him.”

“He is to your left about two kilometers out,” Seven-Seven-One said. “He is coming back. I believe he has snagged a flatfish. I will inform Nine-One-Eight-Three to prepare it as you like.”

“Thank you, Seven,” Gerrold said.

What was the old saying? Out of the frying pan, into the fire? That’s what Gerrold felt being kept on this planet. Death might have been an end, but it might be better than existence on this rock in the middle of a huge ocean. They were under Tslicoss supervision, but the ’xrsc seemed to have the contract to provide for their care. Nothing was explained. They were prisoners.

“I have been asked to inform you to prepare to leave,” Seven-Seven-One said. “The Tslicoss have completed preparations for your new home.”

“This is home?” Gerrold asked.

“This is not death,” Seven-Seven-One said. “There are worse places. You could have gone to Tslicoss, but the ’xrsc rescued you under the Argöttean Contract.”

“Why all the explanations now?” Gerrold asked. Eleven years and not a word, then all of a sudden they were leaving and a bit of knowledge about why they were here and not dead, or worse, was freely given.

“You could’ve asked at any time,” Seven-Seven-One said. “There are no secrets. Tomas asked and was given the knowledge he requested. You did not ask. Blame your quiescent pacifism if you do not know why you are here or where you will go next.”

“Tomas knows?” Gerrold asked. He thought of the boy and all these years being happier than Gerrold imagined possible. Had the boy known all along that this was a temporary home? What was next? Did Tomas know? Why hadn’t Tomas said anything? No, that wasn’t the correct question. The correct question was, “Tomas? Why are you so happy?” Only, Gerrold never asked.

He taught the boy as he should as a teacher. He tried to be as much of a parent as he could. He did know that it was the ’xrsc who told the boy he was like Gerrold and all the star pilots. They had to know those things and they knew what to look for in a boy’s, or a girl’s, physiology to find the answer.

Tomas was like a son to him and now they were leaving this place. Gerrold felt a sadness come over him. This wasn’t home. This could never be home, but this wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.

Tomas was approaching the shore. He’d grown into a fine young man, tall, slender, with enough muscles in the correct places to be attractive to another young man like himself. Not being on Marigold at the boy’s maturity did raise a problem, though. By tradition, Tomas should’ve given his foreskin to the community and Great Knetchi as an offering of responsibility and loyalty to his people, but the culture and traditions of Marigold 3 had been destroyed in the Annihilation and Sterilization of the planet. Every living thing, down to the smallest virus, had been broken down to its smallest molecular components and removed. The people could’ve lived for years under Tslicoss domination. The Tslicoss would’ve eradicated the virus, they had that technology.

Tomas still had his foreskin. That was the difference between them. Well, there were other differences, minor differences, but now Gerrold knew there was one more difference. Tomas knew more about their confinement than he did. It was his own fault for not questioning anything, but still to know that the boy was given more knowledge troubled him.

Tomas was naked, as he was every time he was near water. Gerrold wore the trousers and shirts the ’xrsc provided. That was another difference between them. Tomas felt comfortable without clothes. Gerrold believed nakedness was something you shared with the one you loved, something you gave in the bedroom.

Nine-One-Eight-Three floated across the beach on an unseen force field they hadn’t explained and Gerrold hadn’t asked about. Tomas probably knew how it worked. The robots mostly walked about, but if long-distance travel was required, they floated a couple centimeters off the ground. Gerrold watched the robot take the fish from Tomas. The boy walked toward him.

Gerrold stood and they kissed as any two men, two friends, a father and son, as was the custom on Marigold 3. It was a familial kiss, without passion.

“Did Seven tell you?” Tomas asked. He took the water jug Gerrold offered and took a healthy swallow.

“About us leaving? Yes, he told me. How long have you known?”

“A couple years,” Tomas said. He bent down and picked up his trousers. Steadying himself with a hand on Gerrold’s shoulder, he slipped them on. “I didn’t know exactly when until a couple weeks ago when I received a message from Nisk saying he’d be our pilot.”

“Nisk?”

“Yes, the star pilot who brought us here. Wait a minute, you don’t know, do you?” Tomas took another swallow of water. He put on his shirt and brushed the sand off his feet before slipping on his sandals.

“It seems I failed to ask questions, questions that you seem to have asked,” Gerrold said. He tried not sounding perturbed, but he was and knew he sounded like it.

“They didn’t tell you, then?” Tomas said. He knelt down at the cooler and pulled out a naaga fruit. He removed the peel with a sharp knife and cut it into four sections. He offered one to Gerrold, but he shook his head.

“Oh, the gods be damned, when I woke first and you weren’t there. You know on the ship after we were interrogated by the Slickos.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call them that,” Gerrold said.

“Why? That’s what the Orcolians call them. You should hear some of the Gurdian jokes about them.”

“Gurdian?”

“Damn, Gerrold, don’t you ask any questions?”

“Obviously, I haven’t,” Gerrold said. He began to wonder what he was missing. “You were saying something about when you first woke up on the ship.”

“Oh, yeah, well, they didn’t know what to do with me,” Tomas said. He offered the last piece of fruit to Gerrold and was met with the same rejection. He tossed it to the land crab, a sure way to dispose of any bit of edible garbage. Soon another crab scuttled over to the one with the fruit and a battle of dominance began. “Come, let’s walk back to the hut, I don’t want to ride. Seven’ll bring the cart. Anyway, I was an anomaly. I was a child. They didn’t have anything in their reference material as what to do with a child. You were a pacifist. That was easy. They didn’t have any problem with you. They had volumes of material on what to do with you.”

“Put me on a rock like this?” Gerrold asked. They were more than a kilometer from the trail through the dunes and scrub. Then it was another two up through the forest to the knob where they lived. At first, Gerrold wondered why they lived so far from the beach. Then a storm came and the waves practically erased the scrub and rearranged the dunes. Quite a few trees had been knocked down, too.

“Well, sort of, they told me what our options were,” Tomas said. He picked up the cooler and put it in the cart. Seven knew it was his job to do that, but Tomas seemed to enjoy butting in on domestic work. Gerrold was totally oblivious to what was going on between Tomas and the robots. “This was the best place as far as I was concerned.”

“Why here?”

“The beach, the sun, and we could keep Seven and Nine. Well, Seven and Nine would’ve gone with us to most of the other places, except for the facility on Tslicoss. I didn’t want to go there. You wouldn’t have liked it either. Tslicoss is a bad place for mammals. Slickos don’t like mammals, but by treaty, they can’t kill us. So, when they inform a mammalian planet they’re on the invasion list, they really hope a war will be declared. Only then can they implement an Annihilation and Sterilization program. Only, they have to let the ’xrsc in before to search for noncombatants. People like you.”

“So, Mister Knows-more-than-me, what happens now?” Gerrold asked. He felt Tomas’ arm go around him. This wasn’t a familial embrace. He felt himself stiffen. Then Tomas let him go.

“Well, basically, we get to go to a prison camp and monitor the residents. That’s the simple answer.”

Gerrold stopped and looked at Tomas. Something was not being said.

The planet was closer to Earth than Marigold 3, but not close enough to make travel to the home planet practical. Escape was theoretically possible, if the humans living on the planet had the technical knowledge and capability to build an intergalactic vessel, but the initial residents were not technically savvy about much more than fishing, herding livestock, and making food.

It turned out there were a lot of human colonized planets that fell in harm’s way all across the known universe and the Tslicoss were not the only beings capable of effectively annihilating and sterilizing a planet. The Argöttean Federation was able to negotiate a number of agreements that enabled the retrieval of noncombatants from planets before annihilation and sterilization, and placing them on suitable planets where they could be given the opportunity to grow and prosper and quite possibly need something from UMS; or, known by its full name, the Universal Marketing Scheme, Ltd., which was started by entrepreneurs from the Argöttean Federation who saw a big future in the universe.

The ’xrsc were the key to the operation. Mostly because they were, quite simply, a fully networked, integrated, sentient computer program that operated in what was called recondite dimensions which went beyond the regular dimensions of left-right, up-down, forward-back, to in-out, here-there, and now-then. It seems the ’xrsc had the ability to travel great distances without respect to time. Or, as they liked to put it, “We can deliver the forty tons of gold you ordered the day before yesterday, but it will cost you.”

Gerrold liked the salespeople from Gurd, the fifth planet in the Argöttean Federation. They seemed to have a gene that enabled them to sell anything to anyone, especially if that anyone was more than willing to pay astronomical sums of whatever the Argöttean Federation desired for the anything they didn’t know they needed, but now couldn’t live without. In other words, not only could they sell snow to an Eskimo, they could sell the snow making equipment, the service contracts, the bottled water that the snow making equipment couldn’t operate without, arrange shipping contracts, and negotiate lease agreements for suitable locations across the Arctic.

Of course, Tomas knew all of this because he asked questions and the ’xrsc saw no reason not to tell him whatever he wanted to know. It wasn’t as if he was going to use his knowledge for anything because quite simply he wasn’t.

What the Argöttean contracts specified was someone to babysit the planet-sized prison camps. They arranged for one, and only one, being of the prison group to be selected as the watcher. His or her job was to simply report if technological development at the prison planet exceeded predetermined schedules. Gerrold was chosen to be the first watcher on a planet to be known by its residents as Glandar, a Gurdian word for what came out the other end of a Bog Cow and was a nice winter mulch for a variety of sweet flowered herbaceous plants that usually died in Orcolian winters. The Orcolians suddenly couldn’t get enough glandar to enable their flowers to over-winter, when they hadn’t done so for centuries.

The house was on the side of a mountain far from the nearest settlement. In the early years, no one on the planet knew they were being watched. As years stretched into centuries, though, the watcher gradually made his presence known to the people of his planet, or rather to the breeders of superstition and mythology, the priests. There were always priests. There would always be priests. Fearful people needed some place to lay blame for hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, cancer, heart attack, stroke, upset tummy, and a host of other ills suffered by the ignorant.

A watcher was the only person capable of contacting Earth in an emergency. That Earth didn’t exist anymore was of no significance because no one was contacted. For a number of decades, the ’xrsc maintained a presence in a kiosk, but eventually they removed it. The robots stayed. It was their choice.

Gerrold and Tomas lived for twenty years in their house until Gerrold fell ill with some age-related ailment.

As he lay in what he thought was his deathbed, Tomas and Nine hovered over him. He looked up at Tomas and wondered why the boy stayed with him. Gerrold knew Tomas could’ve gone off with one of the star pilots. He knew Nisk had feelings for the boy, but Tomas stayed at his side.

“I’m sorry I didn’t last as long as you wanted,” Gerrold whispered with a phlegm clogged throat.

“You don’t have to go, you know,” Tomas said.

“What?”

“You didn’t ask, again,” Tomas said. He sat down on the bed and took Gerrold’s fevered hand. “You don’t have to die, right now. The B’na can make you good as new.”

“What?”

“You can come back at my age, or we can both go away and come back as twenty-year olds. I know you’d like that. Our age difference has always been a problem with you, but it doesn’t have to be anymore.”

“I don’t understand,” Gerrold whispered. He hadn’t asked, again. He just went through life accepting what was thrown at him. He was the watcher of Glandar, but it was actually Tomas who did the watching and the reporting. They were creating a completely new society with religions and customs and a strange mythology about a king and his lady coming to Glandar and freeing the people. Yet, all of it was Tomas.

“Gerrold, you have been my father and my companion all these years, let me help you,” Tomas said.

Gerrold’s eyes emptied of life and he went away.

“He is only asleep,” Nine-One-Eight-Three said. “The drug is doing its job. Hold out your arm and I’ll give you your injection.”

There was no beach on Glandar suitable for swimming or sunbathing. Whatever beaches there were had people around them doing what people did. Fisherfolk went to sea in search of nourishment. Herders followed livestock around sandy shores. Priests performed intricate dances in hopes of a little moisture falling where rain hadn’t fallen in years. And two young men not more than a few years past twenty, one circumcised and one not, sat beside a small pool below a mountainside spring marveling in the beauty of their small corner of paradise.

THE END

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