”THE FORGOTTEN NOMAD”
By
Andreas Ingo
Copyright Andreas Ingo 2013
Books written by Andreas Ingo can be obtained either through the author’s official blog:
The zone of free will
or through select, online book retailers.
* * *
1
AT THE BORDER OF THE SUNSET
Fabian undid the zipper, stuck the nervous fingers in his backpack and took up the explosive. This was a lump of explosive material, very sticky, that he broke gently. The plastic explosive was gray, a landscape of minimal ridges, shaded by the decline of the solar disk. Soon the sun would be hidden behind Jupiter, the mother planet, and was coming down. In about thirty-eight hours, the sun would be gone. People would lie down to sleep, only to go up again, though darkness still prevailed.
Fabian felt trembles in the knees; he loosened pieces of the plastic, careful not to make sudden movements. He mounted the viscous material on one of the rotating gears. These were three feet in diameter. He was on a large platform. This platform would transport people, animals and rare vehicles, to various units along the mountainside.
Fabian looked out over the glistening bay. He saw the terraced buildings, along a beach of domed rocks. A cape was looking out into the sea, and had a huge pillar. The pillar carried the terraces of the extraterrestrial colony, which stretched out over the sea.
Europa was Jupiter’s fourth largest moon, white of ice but also colored by rust-red rocks. It wasn’t a hot moon, but the colonists used heat energy from the moon’s interior. Using gigantic pumps and whirring fans, ten meters in diameter, heat were spreading in the atmosphere.
Now dusk had arrived and it would soon be night. Fabian used the darkness to his advantage. He was part of a group of peculiar nomads: Individuals who fought for freedom in a colonized future beyond the bounds of reason. There were colonies on the Moon, Mars and Europa. There were rumors of people on Planet X, a newly discovered celestial body beyond Pluto. It was a future in which technology had progressed very far, but people had seen the backside of it: The dependence on computer technology, the escape from reality, which expanded the distance between the mind and the body. The technology had been abandoned to a large extent, the computers had been smashed, and the vehicles had been blown to pieces. The colonizers of Europe saw the return of the past: A future populated by weathered men, women and children, and even genetically engineered animals on the brink of starvation.
Fabian looked around, felt the pressure of the platform’s slow acceleration, as it approached the center. The platform slowed down and stopped at a dusty unit, full of sparkling dust, where an opening led to a small hall. There were several guards in the hall. The young man was forced to abort the mission. He removed the plastic explosive and set out into the hall. He watched the light-beams that came from the windows. In various booths, shaded by steel gates, there were various forms of military equipment: It was ammunition, futuristic hand guns, and even spherical automatic weapons, which were unleashed during terrorist threats. Fabian tried to blend in among the visitors in the hall. He had taken a sweaty grip on the backpack. He saw enemies everywhere: Guards who saw his stiff walk, his brown and horrified eyes, who had no sympathy for flared clothing. Fabian was a skinny and sad individual: A man who always lived on the edge. When he stiffly walked along the dusty windows, multilayered, even decorated with cobwebs, he started to think about the reason for the fight. The reason he began, the meeting with Eliah, the fight for an abstract goal. The locals didn’t seem to be affected by the same thinking. They seemed happy and curious.
A couple of guards came up to Fabian. They greeted and asked what he thought about the weather. He said he waited for the night. That he’d spent hours in the wilderness but wanted a fitting conclusion. The guards looked at the backpack but didn’t ask what Fabian had in it. Instead, they followed him to one of the windows and looked at the remains of the solar disk. It glowed red and ripe as an apple ready to be picked.
”I just wish it will be a quiet night.” Fabian said. The guards looked at him with interest, and saw the sadness in his eyes. Then they went back to the gates.
Fabian went out a little later and moved upwards on the platform. The huge gears worked along jagged bars.
He took off his backpack, opened the zipper and took out the explosive. This would now be attached to the gear. The plan was to blow up the gear and stop the elevator. By this maneuver, the way to the weapon store would be locked and the revolution could begin. The rebels envisioned a world in flames: Of flames, smoke and suffocating gases.
The darkness was troublesome. Different people had joined with Fabian on the platform. He repeatedly had to interrupt the terrorist attack. And the closer the clock approached midnight, the more desperate Fabian became. Finally, he had to return home.
The rebels were on a higher place, above the elevator. They had made their way to the site through the interior of the building: By walking up a staircase, adorned with old bags, rotten banana peels and dead rats. Fires had been lit in the night. They were in a sparsely populated area. It was a strange place. A man was seen in an open window, dusting of a bed cover with trained arm muscles: This and a touch of good humor.
There were three young women, full of vitality, which found their way up the facades of the buildings: Those were named Belle, Ceres and Aimee.
Fabian stopped by Eliah, the old man, adorned by a rugged face, who’d seen all the times of the colonization. Eliah tried to console the young man, who failed his mission.
”There’s nothing like a good effort.” Eliah said, ”I’ve seen many people in my life, and there’s no one like you.”
Fabian hesitated, he didn’t think about the words, he just felt the stillness of the night, watched the fires that burned in the fireplaces and longed away.
”We have to try.” Eliah continued, ”We must do something.”
”I don’t doubt your sincerity.” Fabian said, ”I understand the purpose behind the mission. I know you have a good ideal and that there are sincere followers. But something has happened: I’ve seen too many people lately: People who aren’t like us.”
The smoke was looking up from the bonfires and the glowing remains of burnt paper joined with the darkness.
”I don’t know what you’re looking for.” Eliah said. ”What could be better than a future free from external structure? Freedom from government, the tightness of social structures and norms?”
He looked at the men who sat on the ground. They flocked around the couple but some glanced at the young women, who swung between the buildings on ropes of fiber.
”I don’t know.” Fabian said, ”I don’t know what I seek.”
A moment later, the young women came down. The race had been to climb the dark buildings, reach the top of them, and then return. The first one was to be crowned as the queen of the night.
”It looks like we have a winner!” Caspian said, a man and a former criminal, who was fond of Belle.
”And this is me!” Belle said. She was a blonde woman of 23 years. She’d climbed with a beginner’s zeal and hadn’t bothered about the danger. Now she was ready for her coronation.
”The coronation is to be regarded as a hero tonight.” Eliah said. ”Come, sit down and drink some alcohol.”
Half an hour later, Fabian walked through the building, the roof of which was the platform at the fire. He came up to a balcony. Fabian went out on the balcony and watched the dark landscape below. Many lamps had been lit on the various terraces of the colony. These were fluorescent lights in various colors: Red, green and yellow. The terraces were different roofs, one above the other, in different sections.
Fabian wished he would
disappear. Away from a world that demanded something of him. He’d joined with Eliah in the fight for freedom. But the fight for the ideal had led him away from the reality. He thought of the individuals he met along the way: On the children, the men and the women. No one seemed to suffer. Not as he. And he suffered in an incomprehensible suffering, existential suffering of a sublime nature.
Now he looked at the fans that squeaked into the night and gave warmth to a chilling atmosphere. They roared by a force whose power was the gravitational forces that existed between the heavenly bodies. The winds that occurred were just too strong to be met upright. But the kids liked the phenomenon and ran into the winds, repeatedly, only to be thrown back.
Fabian decided to go back to Eliah and tell him goodbye. He would leave the freedom fighters and face the world on his own terms: Perhaps he would travel to Planet X, the planet where other seekers resided.
But horrible noises were heard in the night: Sounds of screaming women and men.
When Fabian arrived at the camp, he saw the bodies of the dead: An acquaintance of Caspian: The body of Ceres. Eliah wasn’t there: Nor the others. Fabian knew that the government was responsible.
The remains of the bottles lay scattered on the ground. It glowed from ignited paper. A window was closed and gave room for Fabian’s isolation. Fabian wouldn’t fight for the freedom of others. He would leave to the lower terraces of the colony, to the dark bay, to meet the morning and his new life the next day.
His fate was unknown and served right before him.
2
THE HUMAN COLONY
The night didn’t offer many surprises. The silence had settled over the colony. Fabian went down the stairs, in the interior stairwell. No door was opened or closed. An armature blinked at the ceiling.
If he listened carefully, he could hear the roaring sound of an old radio, set to the wrong frequency.
Soon he was down on the second terrace, from the beach. This terrace rose fifty feet above the ground. On top of this was the old neighborhood. Fabian went through alleys partially lit by colored lights. Doors were duplicated, outer and inner, and used as air-lock.
It was a quaint feeling to walk in the old town. Different ropes hung over the streets, complete with freshly laundered fabrics. Here and there genetically engineered cats were moving: Narrower than the cats on earth. They were higher, ribs thin and slightly sinister. They ran continuously around the colony in search for something to eat. Then the abandoned vehicles: Rovers from birth of the colonization, metal skeletons with smashed panes and fires that had long gone out.
When the morning sent its first rays of light against the bright buildings Fabian could see the floating island, which had been placed over the sea. It was a mile off the coast, measuring one kilometer in diameter and was round as a dinner plate. But there were rectangular housing complexes that stood out and also towers placed on top of it. This was the ruler’s department: A nesting place for officials who worked for the colony.
But Fabian had no time to dream. As soon as people found their way out of the buildings, they yawned and stretched, and Fabian found his way to the employment office. He talked with officials about job opportunities. He thought that if he worked hard for several years, he would eventually get to afford a smaller spacecraft, learn the route to Planet X and then go.
There was nothing holding him back.
The officials said that the work was for those willing. But he couldn’t count on an easy task. Fabian said that the money was all that counted. He needed just so he survived, and an additional sum to put aside for future expenses.
They gave him a job far below the sea level, at a power plant in the sea, under the floating island.
Fabian said yes and was prepared for anything.
3
THE MEETING WITH VINCENT
Getting to the underwater complex was like entering another world. The peace that prevailed didn’t significantly show up. Fabian walked along metallic corridors, lit by white fluorescent lights. It was stained blood on the walls. A hand had been drawn over the blood, and created a thin veil.
He was shown into a kitchen: A place where newcomers could prepare a meal. But from the reactions to be believed, this was something that rarely happened.
No one was there for fun.
He met a man called Vincent, head of Fabian’s unit. Nothing was said directly, but the feeling of authority was palpable. His face was covered by a major injury. As if someone had poured boiling water over it while he stood and watched.
Fabian’s room was exactly five and a half square feet. A small aperture sent a ray of blue light against Fabian’s cheek. It was a rotating fan in the ceiling. Various tubes made up a ventilation system, practically designed. The walls were covered with various pictures representing relatives of the former guest.
But the guest had died and was sent home in a coffin.
Fabian lay down to feel the wings of destiny. He didn’t know how long the work would continue. But if he worked a hundred percent, he thought the anxiety would disappear: He would unite with Vincent in the work for the colonists.
Thoughts gave way for thoughts. Fabian decided to stand up for himself. He wouldn’t follow orders, but do something for himself: The only way to keep the fire alive, the suffering that separated him from the rest.
* * *
Fabian was awakened by an alarm the next day. It was a signal that was used to awaken sleeping workers, but it felt like a fire alarm. He put on the working clothes: A wetsuit and a purple helmet, which would be used for welding work.
At the way out a conflict arose between Fabian and Vincent: Fabian had been informed of the existence of dangerous creatures in the sea, near the workplace. He was traveling in a private submarine, two and a half meters long, equipped with harpoons. He thought it was best to attack the invaders immediately, instead of waiting for the response.
So he veered off the planned route and met the invaders. Vincent was furious. When Fabian sent the first harpoons and met the aliens, he enraged the flock. The aliens were similar to octopuses, but they didn’t have as many arms. Their heads were compact, made for confrontation.
The leader came to life. This was an imposing figure in black, two and a half meters long. The outer parts of the arms resembled suction feet, ready to take hold of an invading enemy. A green light was lit, a kind of orientation mechanism used in the deep sea. Yellow eyes moved insidiously in the protruding tubes that hung along the lower part of the head.
Fabian went into battle. Two warriors took hold of the submarine with their suction feet. They crushed the front window with their heads. Fabian had to escape through the air lock, and joined with the workers in the workplace. The black leader swam suspiciously beyond the periphery: Searching for a victim: Searching for Fabian.
Nothing happened.
An argument arose between Vincent and Fabian.
No one had made such a foolish decision. Admittedly there was a clear threat. But the workers had learned to respect the enemy. It was a cold and calculated war which was a kind of power struggle: Both sides knew that confrontation would lead to destruction and no one wanted death.
”I thought the war was already lost.” Fabian said. He had seen the creatures the night before, when they slyly swam past his window and their green searchlight penetrated the blue bubble.
”The war is over when I say it’s over!” Vincent shouted. He showed the injury on his cheek. ”This damage doesn’t come from the war against the aliens!” Vincent said. ”It comes from the conflict between the workers and me. And I always win!”
Vincent was boiling with anger. But he couldn’t believe it was true: That this young man, Fabian, showed such courage, and actually tried to rescue the workers.
”We’ll let it be for now.” Vincent said. ”But the cost of the submarine will be deducted from your paycheck. That means you will work a whole year without payment. You will follow my orders! And listen to my instructions.”
> Fabian met Vincent’s eyes.
”I felt that destiny was in my hands.” Fabian said, ”That the aliens would attack any minute.”
Vincent went out.
The days that followed were strenuous days without a break. Fabian welded on a leaking pipe, stared at times into the compact darkness, where the aliens could be seen some moments. He wondered if there was any way out of this: If he ever would come to Planet X? If he would die on the spot, and never hear a kind word from his peers?
One night the rebels called. It was said that the group had reorganized. That some had disappeared but others had joined. Fabian wasn’t talking to Eliah. It was Belle: A usually proud and exuberant fighter, who now mourned her sister.
”We demand nothing of you!” Belle said, ”But new facts have come up! We’ve found a way to overtake the floating island! We will disable the floating mechanism and lower the island once and for all! Then the revolution can begin.”
”I know what you’re thinking.” Fabian said, ”I know what’s at stake! But I’ve ended up on in a different place. I’ve seen how people think! I’ve seen that the destiny you seek is an illusion.”
”How did you come to this?” Belle said, ”There never was anyone as brave as you! There never was anyone who longed so much for freedom! And what now? You work! You work in a workplace where you will remain forever!”
”I know what you’re looking for.” Fabian said, ”You seek to bring people into a living reality: A reality where the common initiative will spring, where equality is a measure of well-being. But people don’t want to control themselves! They want to have a guardian that solves all their problems, while they lie in the cradle!”
Belle protested. She invested everything in Eliah’s idea. She lived a bad life before: A life among slackers. She almost ended up in prostitution, but was rescued by Eliah.
Now everything was to be revealed: Friends would be turned against friends, and deviants would unite with their enemies.