William Dietz - The Seeds of Man

Tre figured the best thing to do was keep his mouth shut and get to work. So he watched to see how the others attacked the wall, saw that most of them hit high, and understood why. Were the slaves to undercut the wall, it would cave in on them. So the key was to spot a likely-looking object, sink the pointy end of the pick into the space between it and a neighboring item, and loosen both. Then, after a sufficient number of blows, he could pull the artifact loose. With that accomplished, it was time to throw the trophy toward the center of the pit, where the sorters would deal with it. Most of the sorters were women and children, all of whom were soaked to the skin and ankle deep in mud.

The work was interesting at first because Tre had never done it before. But it wasn’t long before the novelty wore off and the pick grew heavier. So time seemed to slow, and Tre was thinking about the cold rain when a bullet hit a scab working a few feet away. Blood splattered the side of Tre’s face as the body fell. The report was like an afterthought as a burst of maniacal laughter came over the speakers mounted all around the pit. “Oops,” the pit boss said. “The rifle was loaded. Silly me.” More laughter followed.

Tre looked up from the body to where another slave was standing. Their eyes met. “One per day,” the other man said. “At random. To keep us worried.”

Tre peered up through the rain. He couldn’t see the pit boss, but he could imagine the ugly piece of crap. What happened next was pure improvisation. “The Crow will kill him.”

The man frowned. “What?”

“Haven’t you heard? The Crow is coming,” Tre said mysteriously. “And he’s going to free us. So we can fight evil. Pass the word.”

And with that he turned away. Meanwhile, on orders from Sir, a team of four children had taken the body under tow and were dragging it toward the flickering methane torch.

What Tre estimated to be another hour passed before the sun descended below the edge of the crater and a klaxon sounded. That was the signal for the diggers to return their pickaxes, grab a basket loaded with artifacts, and haul it upward. Now that’s efficient , Tre thought. The diggers have to climb up out of the pit, so make the trip pay.

Once Tre and Knife reached the top and got rid of their baskets, they followed the stream of humanity through a maze of sorting tables to a primitive eating area. It was covered with a metal roof but had no walls. That meant it would be freezing cold during the winter.

The slaves were funneled past a table where hundreds of mismatched plates were stacked. The one Tre took was decorated with pictures of red peppers and a glob of dried food. He got most of it off with a ragged thumbnail.

Then it was on to waist-high metal troughs. Food, which had been transported in steaming wheelbarrows, was literally shoveled into the troughs from one side while the slaves passed down the other. There were no utensils, so the only way to obtain some food was to scoop it up with the plate. As Tre watched those in line ahead of him, he saw that some were very skilled at it. By using both hands and sliding their plates in under the gooey mess, they were able to maximize the size of their serving.

So Tre followed suit, was satisfied with the results, and followed Knife into an area furnished with crudely constructed wooden tables and matching benches. Then, having secured seats in a far corner of the area, Tre had the first opportunity to inspect the meal. He decided that the stuff on his plate could best be described as a sort of porridge. Eighty percent of it was oatmeal. But chunks of unidentifiable meat had been added, along with pieces of carrot, onion, and a scattering of peas, all of which tasted better than he thought possible. Maybe that was because he was so hungry. Having licked the plate clean, Tre went to work on his fingers. That was when Knife spoke. “So here we are.”

“Yeah, lucky us.”

“What now?”

Knife was older than Tre, so it felt strange to be in charge. But that was the way Tre wanted it. And if Knife had any qualms about the situation, he hid them well. “I stumbled onto something,” Tre said. “A technique we can use to stir things up.”

Knife listened as Tre told him about the conversation with the other digger. “So,” he added, “let’s talk Crow up. He’s all knowing, all seeing, and on the way. But here’s the key… We aren’t the source of this stuff. We heard it from someone else. Make sense?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Knife responded levelly. “I’ll talk it up.”

After returning their plates, they made it a point to mingle with the other prisoners. During one conversation, Tre asked another slave if the stories about Crow were true. That generated the inevitable response, “Who’s Crow?”

Tre replied that Crow was a freedom fighter, a man dedicated to freeing slaves and restoring the old constitution. It was impossible to know if the man would pass it along to others, or, if he did, how the story would evolve. All Tre could do was try.

Thirty minutes later, the klaxon sounded once more and a gate opened. That was the signal for the slaves to leave the eating enclosure and spill out into the area Tre had seen earlier. Judging from the barely visible yellow lines, it had been a parking lot once, and as people began to enter them, it became obvious that the long, narrow truck trailers had been converted into makeshift barracks.

Tre paused to look around. Surely someone was in control. There were techies up in the guard towers. But, while they were watching, there was no effort to direct traffic. So Tre stopped a man. “Excuse me… I’m new here. How does one know which trailer to sleep in?”

“You don’t,” the man answered succinctly. “Some people like to stay in the same trailer every night. Others prefer to rotate. And that’s fine, assuming people are willing to take them in. It can be difficult, though. Lots of trailers are open to members only.”

“Can I sleep outside?”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t want to. They turn the dogs loose at night.” And with that the man turned away.

It seemed that Kimble preferred to abrogate control wherever he could. The slaves weren’t wearing numbers, didn’t eat in shifts, and were free to sleep in any trailer willing to take them. But when dawn came they would still be slaves. It was an interesting system. “Come on,” Knife said. “We need a place to sleep.”

“Yeah, but I’m going to take a pee first and brush my teeth,” Tre replied. He couldn’t brush his teeth. Not really. But he could scrub them with a finger, which he did at one of the communal sinks. Then he followed Knife from trailer to trailer. The slaves in the third one agreed to take them in.

The interior was lit by a single lightbulb. And that meant Kimble had a source of electricity. The glow illuminated a long rectangular space with a narrow aisle down the center. It was six bunk beds long, which meant the trailer could house twenty-four people. Each bed was equipped with a thin pallet, a lumpy pillow, and two blankets. Were they infested with bedbugs? Tre figured they were but had no way to avoid them. Why didn’t the techies insist on a minimal level of cleanliness? As Tre rolled into an upper bunk, the pit boss’s words came back to him. “Given a bit of luck, you could last five or six months.”

That was the key, Tre decided. Rather than spend gold to care for his slaves, Kimble preferred to use and then dispose of them, much like the artifacts being mined from the dump.

It was a very different approach from the one Voss favored. Which economic model was superior? That would depend on the supply of slaves. When they were plentiful, and therefore cheap, Kimble would come out ahead. But when slaves were hard to come by, Voss would profit. That was what Tre was thinking about when sleep pulled him down.