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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Science Fiction
- Subject: Time: PAST/Present/FUTURE
- Published: 09/04/2014
The Prinze of Darkness
Born 1954, M, from De Rust Western Cape, South AfricaThe Printz Of Darkness. By Jeff Glazier
“Well, who’s going to tell him then?”
“Well I’m certainly not.” H26 was adamant. “I don’t feel like getting my head chewed off today, last time there was a problem, if you remember, I was demoted from H17.”
H53, a rather pretty newcomer responsible for the optic fibre wiring, reckoned that the stand-in H450, which was about the lowest grade, should take the flack as it was during his watch it had happened. They all stood still as H450 made the call to his superior.
“H!” His tone was gruff as usual as he answered the call. He listened for a few seconds. “What?! What do you mean he’s escaped, you pollat?” A new vocabulary of grotesque swear words had developed, ones of the 20th Century were now considered overused and outmoded. H was particularly fond of promoting the new.
“How can he go missing? He was in the highest security facility in the Universe, you Fittal!” Even H450 was shocked at that one.
“Also, Sir,” H450 was already bracing himself, “he took the Galaxy F19.” The silence was just to build up steam, H was red-faced on the screen, – and screaming. “How in Drell’s name did he manage to get into that!? That machine is prototype, it cost 680 tollens. There’d better be an explanation for this and even if there is I’m still going to have your bollocks off.” Some words hadn’t lost their meaning. H was at his menacing best. “What did you say your number was?”
“450 Sir.”
“450?! What in drells name is a 450 number frettling doing in the Printz department – no wonder! Who’s in charge?”
“H26 sir”
“Right, put him on and you . . . you do yourself a favour and go for a long walk outside the dome will you? It will save you a lot of pain.”
“H26 here sir.” H looked up from studying his IB scroll, “I see that last yeg you were H17,” and you’re still in charge? No wonder we’re losing it.” He was shaking his head. “So, what happened? And this had better be good.”
“Well sir,” H26 tried to sound in control. “We believe that he may have defected. We’ve found coded transcripts of his communications with Svetlana RZ02.”
“What? A cruddley spy? What else has he taken apart from the poddling Galaxy?”
“Virtually everything sir, including all the backups.” H just closed his eyes. “When did this happen?”
“0179 RDs ago.”
“Right, I will get the space military to head him off. We can pick him up unless he knows how to activate the invisibility shield.”
“ Er . . . maybe he might, . . . he recently made friends with GSap7, he’s pretty high up in the Galaxy staff.”
“ Gutmog! So, you just gave him the keys and said help yourself did you?” H26 didn’t answer. “Tell me why do you think that I am H and you’re H26?”
No answer.
“Well I’ll tell you why, it’s because you make mistakes and I don’t.”
“Yes sir, sorry sir.”
“You see, I don’t say I’m sorry because I don’t make mistakes and you will see that I haven’t made a mistake when you get your next posting. Prepare yourself.” With that H was gone.
H26 sighed and he looked around at the rest of the staff. “I reckon it’ll be Deep Shaft 38 for me next.” He glanced round the sorry looking group. “Has H450 gone?” The staff nodded solemnly. “He’s done the right thing really, his life would never have been worth living.”
The year 3013 saw man first settle on the moon. The earth was now practically uninhabitable. During the previous 80 years the population had exploded and consumerism had eaten up almost all resources. The ozone layer had depleted and temperatures had gradually risen, as had oceans, so many low-lying countries were submerged. As temperatures increased the seas began to evaporate, cities began, macabrely, to re-emerge, but were by then, uninhabitable. Disease had taken hold and the population had drastically reduced. America had led the way in colonising the moon – that was no surprise; they were the first, they claimed. Bits and pieces of the moon were reallocated to other countries under strict control; the Russians occupied the whole of the Dark Side.
Your ‘Licence to Live’, as it was called, was difficult to obtain and it depended entirely upon your abilities. They were looking for engineers, scientists, geologists and mining experts. They were invited initially, and then only upon service would that licence be confirmed. Medics were also high on the list. Clergymen and lawyers were automatically excluded. Money had little sway, no licence could be bought. Those who thought it could lost it in scams. On Earth the idle rich who had hung on to it were merely able to prolong their life, the poor died quickly.
The mining sector was desperate to acquire more expendables. Overall they had lost 1500 men in mine collapses in the last month. There just weren’t the resources to shore up the tunnels. The collection of more labour from earth was becoming more difficult, the Elite Recruitment programme, promising lucrative rewards had been exposed. Miners were guaranteed a Licence to Live; they weren’t told for how long though. The life span was short in a moon mine and the rounding up of men was now a job for mercenaries who carried out the Capture Programme. This was the main reason why the Printz were developed, the nitrate rock was deep and there were 600 more domes nearing completion.
“H.”
“Sir, its H26 here. I’ve just decoded the latest correspondence between Jed and Svetlana. It looks like they’ve developed a relationship and . . . well, it seems they needed to meet each other.”
“Who do they think they are all of a sudden? Adam and frettling Eve? Look, if we don’t get those Printz up and running down the mine within 23 yps, we can all pack up and die back on earth. And don’t believe for one minute that this is quite what you think, I don’t trust the Russians, I think Svetlana has turned on her well known charm and he’s fallen for it and handed himself to her on a plate. She is just the Russian bribe, and he’s taken it, the stupid podler!”
All preliminary work had been carried out in secret, until the construction started. Huge domes made from silica and the naturally occurring sodium chloride were built. The moon had the structural foundation for life, after all it was widely accepted that four billion years ago it was formed from part of earth that was clipped off by a massive Mars sized meteorite. The atmosphere in the domes was produced by extracting oxygen from water that was found in abundance under the North Pole of the moon. Unfortunately it had been unwittingly piped through land allocated for New Nigeria, and large quantities were illegally siphoned off. Nitrates, producing nitrogen necessary to combine with oxygen to make air, were found in the rock which was extracted by the power of vast mirror satellites that were put into orbit from earth several years previously. Electricity was produced by steam driven turbines, the water heated by the mirrors. Nuclear power had proved itself unreliable after many catastrophes on earth, so was not considered. The work was tough and many lives were lost, initially they were conscripts and prisoners, expendables as they were called. The mining of the materials proved the greatest obstacle, the Russians were frantically trying to compete. The race was on to produce a labour force, a more expendable labour force and, if necessary, one that could be armed.
The 3D printer had been developed around a hundred years previously, virtually anything could be printed. The first gun was printed in 2013. But what the technology was really aiming at was the printing of people and this had all but been achieved, all that was left to do was to activate them. Jed – code A005 – was the human brain on the American side. The Russians were getting a step closer through the efforts of the brilliant mind of Svetlana RZ02, the Russian equivalent. In one dome on the American side, over 50,000 of what were called Printz and Printzess had been printed, boxed and stacked ready for use. They were dwarf - like in size, that allowed for smaller and more efficient mining tunnels. The Printz were constructed with four arms, for higher productivity, the Prinzess’s with the conventional two. They also had two wombs, many little prinzes had to be produced – and fast. A005 and his production team were kept in ultra high security until, that was, the 29.5th of Yeg. The Lunar calendar was now in place.
“Come in Svetlana.”
“Jed, where are you?”
“Just entering the Dark Side, I’ll switch off my shield, you do the same, OK.”
“Done.”
Jed saw the aged Clash-cominech Z100 loom in the distance. Russian spacecraft had a terrible reputation of unreliability as they were kept in service far too long.
“Took a bit of a risk taking that didn’t you?” Getting closer he saw the battered panels and dangling leads shorting out. “Listen, I’m going to get on top of you, get ready to open your lower port.”
“Can’t wait.”
Jed signalled when the Galaxy was in position. Svetlana got in the transfer pod to leave her ship. On command she ejected to the safety of the Galaxy and the open arms of Jed.
They had begun their relationship from the far side of the moon over 105 Yegs ago, this was the first time that they had met in the flesh. His elation was short lived; Jed saw two Russian Super Sukonov-34’s speeding towards him. He switched on his shield and moved away. The Super Sukonovs circled the Clash-cominech then opened fire. The explosion rocked the Galaxy, Svetlana hung onto Jed.
“Hmm, they’re not very happy with you are they?”
“No, not now, the miserable pzipps!, For 205 Yegs I was there, locked up like a prisoner, come on let’s get out of here.”
Jed set course, picked up speed then programmed auto. “Now, let me look at you.” Svetlana had already shrugged off her suit. “You’re more beautiful than the screen version, at first I thought they may have made you up.” He teased her long blonde hair and pulled her closer. “I’ve been waiting 105Yegs for this.”
Svetlana hugged him. “My knight in American armour who came to save me, my Prince in the darkness.” Jed laughed. She distracted him by unzipping her top. He began to caress her, the craft began to shake. Jed reluctantly pulled away.
“We’d better strap up, we’re about to enter the earth’s atmosphere.”
They sat together gripping hands as, through the window, they saw the cold metal suddenly glow red as they joined the real world and blue sky.
“It’s been over 200 yegs since I’ve seen this, you only realise how wonderful it is when you’ve been imprisoned in a dome on the dark side of the moon.” Svetlana was staring out wistfully
“And what’s more, wasting your time producing dwarves that will never function, when did you realise that it wasn’t going to happen?”
“I had expressed doubt for some time, but I was always pushed further, especially as reports showed me to be behind with your research.”
“Propaganda, that’s all it was, I was nowhere near. They’d watched too many sci-fi movies.”
“And even if they did work, the same thing that happened on earth would happen there, the resources would just get used up. Anyhow, do we really stand a chance going back?” She was picking out the outline of land below.
“Oh yes, certainly in this bus. The earth’s in a mess, but if another six billion die, they still use old numbers here, then things will stabilise. I calculate that this will take another 18 months, that’s how long we’ve got to wait. At the moment earth is a bit like an open wound. You see I believe that the earth will heal now there are fewer people and less pollution. It became sustainable with huge numbers and under their weight, collapsed.”
“Let’s hope you’re right, how are we going to survive?”
“First we will have to get stocked up, I’m aiming for Los Angeles, there’s still quite a population with money there, so they must have supplies. I’m going to land in the desert just outside the city, we’ll take the buggy in. The ship will be safe, no one will go near it, they’ll think its part of the Capture Programme.”
“Then what?”
“We’re going to hide, I’m afraid they will come after us.”
“Where?”
“Africa. It was completely depopulated in 2085. They ransacked the continent, mined it out. The best place I reckon is South Africa, an area called the Karoo. There are massive deep mines left over from the great uranium rush of 2051, we’ll hide there.” Warning lights alerted Jed that landing was imminent. “You’d better strap in.”
The landing was soft in the Californian desert. They looked at each other with relief. Jed began to unstrap her. “Now, where were we before we entered earth’s atmosphere.” He reached for her zip.
“Might feel the earth shake this time” Svetlana sounded hopeful as she led him into the comfort cell.
They emerged later into the sweltering heat, 58 degrees centigrade. The buggy was fuelled by hydrogen; they had that in abundance as it was a by-product of extracting the oxygen from water. The buggy’s air con was working overtime as they drove through the dusty desolate terrain to the city, or what was left of it. At a distance it looked almost derelict, it wasn’t much better close up. Life went on but with little purpose, Mad Max 18 remained unfinished. They found a Mallxtreme, as the shops had become. It still had stock, they took some fresh food, but mostly frozen and tinned food, spam had the highest shelf life, over 20 years.
Svetlana was browsing through the movie section, there were thousands loaded onto a tiny usb twig. She glanced at Jed as they neared the checkout. “I don’t suppose there will be much in the way of entertainment for the foreseeable future.”
“No, we’ll be in for the duration, probably just you and me. But you never know, we might expect company.” He reached to the shelf and collected two megatubs of Super Formula 001, then added a couple of large boxes of disposable nappies.
The Prinze of Darkness(Jeff Glazier)
The Printz Of Darkness. By Jeff Glazier
“Well, who’s going to tell him then?”
“Well I’m certainly not.” H26 was adamant. “I don’t feel like getting my head chewed off today, last time there was a problem, if you remember, I was demoted from H17.”
H53, a rather pretty newcomer responsible for the optic fibre wiring, reckoned that the stand-in H450, which was about the lowest grade, should take the flack as it was during his watch it had happened. They all stood still as H450 made the call to his superior.
“H!” His tone was gruff as usual as he answered the call. He listened for a few seconds. “What?! What do you mean he’s escaped, you pollat?” A new vocabulary of grotesque swear words had developed, ones of the 20th Century were now considered overused and outmoded. H was particularly fond of promoting the new.
“How can he go missing? He was in the highest security facility in the Universe, you Fittal!” Even H450 was shocked at that one.
“Also, Sir,” H450 was already bracing himself, “he took the Galaxy F19.” The silence was just to build up steam, H was red-faced on the screen, – and screaming. “How in Drell’s name did he manage to get into that!? That machine is prototype, it cost 680 tollens. There’d better be an explanation for this and even if there is I’m still going to have your bollocks off.” Some words hadn’t lost their meaning. H was at his menacing best. “What did you say your number was?”
“450 Sir.”
“450?! What in drells name is a 450 number frettling doing in the Printz department – no wonder! Who’s in charge?”
“H26 sir”
“Right, put him on and you . . . you do yourself a favour and go for a long walk outside the dome will you? It will save you a lot of pain.”
“H26 here sir.” H looked up from studying his IB scroll, “I see that last yeg you were H17,” and you’re still in charge? No wonder we’re losing it.” He was shaking his head. “So, what happened? And this had better be good.”
“Well sir,” H26 tried to sound in control. “We believe that he may have defected. We’ve found coded transcripts of his communications with Svetlana RZ02.”
“What? A cruddley spy? What else has he taken apart from the poddling Galaxy?”
“Virtually everything sir, including all the backups.” H just closed his eyes. “When did this happen?”
“0179 RDs ago.”
“Right, I will get the space military to head him off. We can pick him up unless he knows how to activate the invisibility shield.”
“ Er . . . maybe he might, . . . he recently made friends with GSap7, he’s pretty high up in the Galaxy staff.”
“ Gutmog! So, you just gave him the keys and said help yourself did you?” H26 didn’t answer. “Tell me why do you think that I am H and you’re H26?”
No answer.
“Well I’ll tell you why, it’s because you make mistakes and I don’t.”
“Yes sir, sorry sir.”
“You see, I don’t say I’m sorry because I don’t make mistakes and you will see that I haven’t made a mistake when you get your next posting. Prepare yourself.” With that H was gone.
H26 sighed and he looked around at the rest of the staff. “I reckon it’ll be Deep Shaft 38 for me next.” He glanced round the sorry looking group. “Has H450 gone?” The staff nodded solemnly. “He’s done the right thing really, his life would never have been worth living.”
The year 3013 saw man first settle on the moon. The earth was now practically uninhabitable. During the previous 80 years the population had exploded and consumerism had eaten up almost all resources. The ozone layer had depleted and temperatures had gradually risen, as had oceans, so many low-lying countries were submerged. As temperatures increased the seas began to evaporate, cities began, macabrely, to re-emerge, but were by then, uninhabitable. Disease had taken hold and the population had drastically reduced. America had led the way in colonising the moon – that was no surprise; they were the first, they claimed. Bits and pieces of the moon were reallocated to other countries under strict control; the Russians occupied the whole of the Dark Side.
Your ‘Licence to Live’, as it was called, was difficult to obtain and it depended entirely upon your abilities. They were looking for engineers, scientists, geologists and mining experts. They were invited initially, and then only upon service would that licence be confirmed. Medics were also high on the list. Clergymen and lawyers were automatically excluded. Money had little sway, no licence could be bought. Those who thought it could lost it in scams. On Earth the idle rich who had hung on to it were merely able to prolong their life, the poor died quickly.
The mining sector was desperate to acquire more expendables. Overall they had lost 1500 men in mine collapses in the last month. There just weren’t the resources to shore up the tunnels. The collection of more labour from earth was becoming more difficult, the Elite Recruitment programme, promising lucrative rewards had been exposed. Miners were guaranteed a Licence to Live; they weren’t told for how long though. The life span was short in a moon mine and the rounding up of men was now a job for mercenaries who carried out the Capture Programme. This was the main reason why the Printz were developed, the nitrate rock was deep and there were 600 more domes nearing completion.
“H.”
“Sir, its H26 here. I’ve just decoded the latest correspondence between Jed and Svetlana. It looks like they’ve developed a relationship and . . . well, it seems they needed to meet each other.”
“Who do they think they are all of a sudden? Adam and frettling Eve? Look, if we don’t get those Printz up and running down the mine within 23 yps, we can all pack up and die back on earth. And don’t believe for one minute that this is quite what you think, I don’t trust the Russians, I think Svetlana has turned on her well known charm and he’s fallen for it and handed himself to her on a plate. She is just the Russian bribe, and he’s taken it, the stupid podler!”
All preliminary work had been carried out in secret, until the construction started. Huge domes made from silica and the naturally occurring sodium chloride were built. The moon had the structural foundation for life, after all it was widely accepted that four billion years ago it was formed from part of earth that was clipped off by a massive Mars sized meteorite. The atmosphere in the domes was produced by extracting oxygen from water that was found in abundance under the North Pole of the moon. Unfortunately it had been unwittingly piped through land allocated for New Nigeria, and large quantities were illegally siphoned off. Nitrates, producing nitrogen necessary to combine with oxygen to make air, were found in the rock which was extracted by the power of vast mirror satellites that were put into orbit from earth several years previously. Electricity was produced by steam driven turbines, the water heated by the mirrors. Nuclear power had proved itself unreliable after many catastrophes on earth, so was not considered. The work was tough and many lives were lost, initially they were conscripts and prisoners, expendables as they were called. The mining of the materials proved the greatest obstacle, the Russians were frantically trying to compete. The race was on to produce a labour force, a more expendable labour force and, if necessary, one that could be armed.
The 3D printer had been developed around a hundred years previously, virtually anything could be printed. The first gun was printed in 2013. But what the technology was really aiming at was the printing of people and this had all but been achieved, all that was left to do was to activate them. Jed – code A005 – was the human brain on the American side. The Russians were getting a step closer through the efforts of the brilliant mind of Svetlana RZ02, the Russian equivalent. In one dome on the American side, over 50,000 of what were called Printz and Printzess had been printed, boxed and stacked ready for use. They were dwarf - like in size, that allowed for smaller and more efficient mining tunnels. The Printz were constructed with four arms, for higher productivity, the Prinzess’s with the conventional two. They also had two wombs, many little prinzes had to be produced – and fast. A005 and his production team were kept in ultra high security until, that was, the 29.5th of Yeg. The Lunar calendar was now in place.
“Come in Svetlana.”
“Jed, where are you?”
“Just entering the Dark Side, I’ll switch off my shield, you do the same, OK.”
“Done.”
Jed saw the aged Clash-cominech Z100 loom in the distance. Russian spacecraft had a terrible reputation of unreliability as they were kept in service far too long.
“Took a bit of a risk taking that didn’t you?” Getting closer he saw the battered panels and dangling leads shorting out. “Listen, I’m going to get on top of you, get ready to open your lower port.”
“Can’t wait.”
Jed signalled when the Galaxy was in position. Svetlana got in the transfer pod to leave her ship. On command she ejected to the safety of the Galaxy and the open arms of Jed.
They had begun their relationship from the far side of the moon over 105 Yegs ago, this was the first time that they had met in the flesh. His elation was short lived; Jed saw two Russian Super Sukonov-34’s speeding towards him. He switched on his shield and moved away. The Super Sukonovs circled the Clash-cominech then opened fire. The explosion rocked the Galaxy, Svetlana hung onto Jed.
“Hmm, they’re not very happy with you are they?”
“No, not now, the miserable pzipps!, For 205 Yegs I was there, locked up like a prisoner, come on let’s get out of here.”
Jed set course, picked up speed then programmed auto. “Now, let me look at you.” Svetlana had already shrugged off her suit. “You’re more beautiful than the screen version, at first I thought they may have made you up.” He teased her long blonde hair and pulled her closer. “I’ve been waiting 105Yegs for this.”
Svetlana hugged him. “My knight in American armour who came to save me, my Prince in the darkness.” Jed laughed. She distracted him by unzipping her top. He began to caress her, the craft began to shake. Jed reluctantly pulled away.
“We’d better strap up, we’re about to enter the earth’s atmosphere.”
They sat together gripping hands as, through the window, they saw the cold metal suddenly glow red as they joined the real world and blue sky.
“It’s been over 200 yegs since I’ve seen this, you only realise how wonderful it is when you’ve been imprisoned in a dome on the dark side of the moon.” Svetlana was staring out wistfully
“And what’s more, wasting your time producing dwarves that will never function, when did you realise that it wasn’t going to happen?”
“I had expressed doubt for some time, but I was always pushed further, especially as reports showed me to be behind with your research.”
“Propaganda, that’s all it was, I was nowhere near. They’d watched too many sci-fi movies.”
“And even if they did work, the same thing that happened on earth would happen there, the resources would just get used up. Anyhow, do we really stand a chance going back?” She was picking out the outline of land below.
“Oh yes, certainly in this bus. The earth’s in a mess, but if another six billion die, they still use old numbers here, then things will stabilise. I calculate that this will take another 18 months, that’s how long we’ve got to wait. At the moment earth is a bit like an open wound. You see I believe that the earth will heal now there are fewer people and less pollution. It became sustainable with huge numbers and under their weight, collapsed.”
“Let’s hope you’re right, how are we going to survive?”
“First we will have to get stocked up, I’m aiming for Los Angeles, there’s still quite a population with money there, so they must have supplies. I’m going to land in the desert just outside the city, we’ll take the buggy in. The ship will be safe, no one will go near it, they’ll think its part of the Capture Programme.”
“Then what?”
“We’re going to hide, I’m afraid they will come after us.”
“Where?”
“Africa. It was completely depopulated in 2085. They ransacked the continent, mined it out. The best place I reckon is South Africa, an area called the Karoo. There are massive deep mines left over from the great uranium rush of 2051, we’ll hide there.” Warning lights alerted Jed that landing was imminent. “You’d better strap in.”
The landing was soft in the Californian desert. They looked at each other with relief. Jed began to unstrap her. “Now, where were we before we entered earth’s atmosphere.” He reached for her zip.
“Might feel the earth shake this time” Svetlana sounded hopeful as she led him into the comfort cell.
They emerged later into the sweltering heat, 58 degrees centigrade. The buggy was fuelled by hydrogen; they had that in abundance as it was a by-product of extracting the oxygen from water. The buggy’s air con was working overtime as they drove through the dusty desolate terrain to the city, or what was left of it. At a distance it looked almost derelict, it wasn’t much better close up. Life went on but with little purpose, Mad Max 18 remained unfinished. They found a Mallxtreme, as the shops had become. It still had stock, they took some fresh food, but mostly frozen and tinned food, spam had the highest shelf life, over 20 years.
Svetlana was browsing through the movie section, there were thousands loaded onto a tiny usb twig. She glanced at Jed as they neared the checkout. “I don’t suppose there will be much in the way of entertainment for the foreseeable future.”
“No, we’ll be in for the duration, probably just you and me. But you never know, we might expect company.” He reached to the shelf and collected two megatubs of Super Formula 001, then added a couple of large boxes of disposable nappies.
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