Philip Palmer - Debatable Space

I am seized with an appalling homicidal rage, and I rein myself in. Not now, not here, not like this… I force a smile. Then, in icily measured tones I tell her: “My people have suffered for centuries. But we will endure and we will survive and we will find our Promised Land.”

She blinks for a few moments.

“You’re a Christian?” she asks me.

“I’m a Humanist Atheist,” I reply. “But I still believe in the possibility of a better future.”

“You’re full of lies,” she snarls. “You’re just a very successful thief. I don’t buy this freedom-fighter bullshit.”

“I can be both! A thief and a champion of justice!”

“A butcher, and a beheader of innocents!”

“In war such things must happen!”

“In peace, such things must happen too. That is why my son is so severe!”

“The Cheo is an animal.”

“He is a leader. He leads. The universe of humanity follows. His way is brutal, yes. But given the restrictions imposed by the vast distances of space, and the fragmented and self-destructive nature of humankind, and, and, and… the xenobiological threats which jeopardise our very survival – how could it be otherwise…?”

Our angry words hang in the air, like mist on a summer’s morning.

“I’ve enjoyed this quarrel.”

“So have I.”

“Even though you’re wrong.”

“Oh fuck off!”

“Fuck off yourself, bitch!!!!”

“You blame me for everything.” Suddenly, the ice maiden Lena is in tears. “Why is that? Why am I always blamed for everything?”

“You gave birth to a monster. For that, you stand condemned.”

My home planet of Cambria is a warm and green and beautiful land. Originally, it had been an arid ball with a high oxygen content and vast reserves of frozen water. But accelerated terraforming melted the water, mixed the oxygen with carbon dioxide, and liberated the vast fertility of the lands. Low rolling hills cover most of my homeland, interwoven with a complex latticework of rivers and lakes. There are no seas, no oceans, just fertile land and rich Earth-born vegetation.

The factories of Cambria are contained underground, in vast caverns transformed into slave repositories and workplaces. The masters of the planet – the DRs – inhabit the green and fertile land of Cambria. And the humans live beneath the earth, in flickering artificial semi-light. And that is where I lived, as a child, and where I worked too.

Our work was skilled. We created hand-carved furniture for the DRs to enjoy. We wove clothes for the DRs to wear. And we formed vast conveyor lines of people to assemble DR artefacts – music players, cars, airplanes, flyboards, personal computers and mobile phones. The components were all precision-created by machines which we serviced and tended. But it was cheaper and easier for humans to slot the individual components together into their wholes, than to build a machine to do it.

My father was a Surface Human, and every day he joined an army of workers who trooped up to the surface to maintain the perfect idyll that was Cambria. Some were gardeners, some pruned trees, some tended and fed the wild animals. There were vast vineyards covering Cambria, and some workers had the vital task of picking these grapes and treading them in the old-fashioned way with their feet to turn the grape juice into wine. Other humans tended the olive trees, the apple and orange trees, the potato fields. Some grew marrows and courgettes. Some created exotic hybrid fruit and vegetables.

Some, the privileged few, were Chefs, responsible for cooking and preparing by hand magnificent meals for the frequent DR banquets. Some were Waiters, some were Bartenders. But every night, the Surface Humans retired to their underground cavern homes, where they rejoined their families and participated in the human community we called True Cambria.

It wasn’t a bad life, by and large. The underground caverns were a natural formation, caused by extreme volcanic action, and they formed a subterranean subworld that stretched beneath the entire planet. The caverns were often vast, and the rock formations were extraordinary. This was my playground as a child. We played hide and seek, we played football, we swam in underground lakes. Children were never taken to the surface, so we never knew what we were missing. But I often think that given a choice between an underground cave and a field in sunlight – I would have chosen the cave. There was something magical and hidden about the world we lived in.

And we had creature comforts too. We had food, plenty of water, alcohol when we needed it. We grew our own crops. We tended herds of animals. We wrote novels and poems and performed dramas for each other. But we had no knowledge of science, an entirely warped and blinkered version of our own history, and no concept of the methodology and principles of Quantum Beacon interstellar communication. Some intellectuals argued that, in fact, the community of Humans stretched across large portions of the Home Galaxy; and that humans were the dominant species in space. But we found that hard to believe. DRs were, to us, our gods.

Yet as a child, I never fully understood what a DR really was. Not, that is, until my first Summer Fair.

My sister Sheena and I were chosen to go together. She was sixteen, I was seventeen. She was a beautiful child; and I was a fit, handsome, arrogant young man. We felt proud to be selected for the Fair. I knew of course that sex was involved. But I was not a virgin, and neither was Sheena. We were prepared and willing and hungry for new experiences.

I still remember the tingle of anticipation as the elevator took us up to the surface. We were given goggles to wear to protect us from the sunlight. But even so, when we took our first steps into the outside world, we were dazzled by the blazing light. Slowly our vision corrected itself, and we began, even through the goggles, to see the colours and richness of the land. The blazing yellow sun, the green fields, the brown bark of the trees, the pink and purple flowers, the blue lakes and streams and rivers.

A city of tents had been created as the site for the annual Summer Fair festivities. Human dancers and singers performed on stage. There were fairground stalls, a rollercoaster, a man with knives showing off his throwing skills. Sheena and I paused to watch. Volunteers stepped forward from the audience to join in this amazing show. A beautiful young woman with blonde hair stood in front of a board, arms outstretched. And a drum rolled. And the knife thrower stood proud, and drew a knife from his belt, and held the blade in the fingers of his right hand. Then he threw.

The silver blade arced through the air, not a breath emerged from the hushed crowd…

And the knife landed safely in the board, next to her head. Then the next knife was thrown, and hit the board on the other side of her head. Another went under her arm. Another knife caught her hair and pinned it to the wood. And another knife flew… and another… splintering wood with terrifying force and missing flesh by centimetres. The knife thrower’s aim was remarkable; the girl was entirely unhurt. A cheer went up.

I could smell toffee apples and hot cider. I fet a surge of joy at the heat of the sun. I took off my goggles, and blinked, and by now was able to see in the clear daylight.

Then a DR arrived, amazingly tall, powerfully muscled, silver-skinned, calmly authoritative. He took the knives from the knife man and prepared to show off his own skill.

Within seconds six knives had been thrown, each of them perfectly on target. Three knives sank into the board just to the left of the young woman’s throat. Three went to the right of her throat. The knives were so close they grazed her skin. The woman shuddered, and laughed. “Someone else have a go!” she cried.