Randolph Lalonde
Triton — 01
Prologue
The stone market steps showed the passage of billions. Pandem was known as the twenty third world fully colonized by humans. Alaka and his family enjoyed living there.
As a nafalli he was something of an oddity, people liked to stare at his dark brown and orange coloured fur and most of the time he'd smile back. The people who knew him would generally take that as a sign to approach and be friendly, but if he didn't pay attention they'd leave him alone. He was a hunter, some called him an exterminator. Alaka killed rim weasels for a living. Long, furry rodents that would eat anything, breed faster than most catalogued mammals, destroy electronics, and stow away in ships, spreading to other ports.
The city of Damshir was carved into the side of a mountain of black and semi-transparent violet stone. The stairs he tread on led from one level of the market to the next and were cut deeper into the side of the mountain as he went. Looking down you could see one walkway beneath another, much like a larger version of the stone stair he climbed. The safety nets off to the side, there in case anyone fell off the edge of the stairs were becoming weather worn again, there would be work for the urchins soon, repairing them. He always thought anyone working on something made for safety should be paid more, they were tending devices made to save lives, after all.
There were hundreds of merchants, the noise coming from above and below was a constant buzz, in its activity and noise he supposed it might be like a bee hive, not that he'd ever seen one in person. As a world once so very important to the outer core of the settled galaxy, Pandem had many well populated cities. Just under three billion people called it home. The resources had run out over a century before, and now most of the world served as a major port on the way out to the fringes. Rim weasels were a serious problem. Many ships would avoid Pandem because of them.
Ships flew overhead while the few personal transports allowed to move at low altitudes hovered and darted around, transporting people with much more importance that he. The older buildings were built of stone, the newer ones were just like you'd find in any other port; steel and transparesteel. He often wondered why humans invested in things that were invariably more temporary rather than spend the extra time to build something that could last several lifetimes.
He finally arrived at his destination. There were many shops on Barker Street, it had a very nice view of the city below and the white and black sand desert behind it. “Back again? Did you take the lift this time?”
“Why would I pay for a lift pass? Besides, they're too crowded.” Alaka ruffled his fur, trying to let some of the breeze get through it. “I finally tracked down that nest. It was in an old frontier cargo hauler.”
“Underground?”
“Right under the employment registry building.” He lifted the sack he had hauled all the way up the steps.
“Damn, Alaka. You must have two hundred kilos here.”
“Only the pelts, they're all cleaned and processed.”
“That's a lot of rim weasels. We'll get to counting them right away. Do you have your chase log?”
Alaka presented a small holographic recorder. “Would I forget to record a chase under a municipal building Yves?” he asked, smacking his dark brown nose with a long furred paw. “Sorry, got a whiff of something that's makin' me itch ever since down there,” the fur on the back of his neck rippled as he turned his head and sneezed into the open air.
Yves turned a little projector on and advanced through the footage of Alaka tracking rim weasels to their nest. He paused it and pointed at an old transit sign. “Yup, that's right under the employment registry building. You've got a big bonus coming, they've had a problem with the weasels for years.”
“It'd help if they stopped using old rubber insulation in their wiring. Rimmers eat that stuff up like cake and cream.”
“I'll pass it along, but you know how it goes. They don't listen to us up here, we're just civil servants,” Yves smiled at him. “Do you want me to incinerate this batch of hides or are you keeping them?” he asked, dragging the sack off the counter onto an antigravity sled.
“I'll take them once they're counted.”
“You know you're the only one who still does that. The synthetic furs have been more popular for years. What do you do with them?”
“The little ones love making beds out of 'em. These will keep them out from under paw for days. May as well use them for something, otherwise they'll just get mulched with everything else. Saves me thousands on toys and bedding.”
“Sounds like you're in the right profession,” Yves said, pushing the sled into a large counting machine.
“Today Iloona will agree with you. This comes at a good time. Her pouch is full again.”
“New additions to the family?”
Alaka nodded, smiling. The fur on his chin stretched to show the finer, striped section of his coat. “Two healthy boys and one girl. They're fussy though, keep waking her up at night.”
“You'll have to bring her by.”
“I will,” He looked up the street a little and caught a glimpse of a group of humans in green and blue cloaks. As they came out of the archway carved into the side of the mountain a crowd started gathering. “What's with the well dressed ladies and gentlemen?”
“Oh, that bunch? Just another apocalypse cult. One of the problems with these old colonies, crackpots everywhere.”
“What's it this time? Fire raining from the sky? Plague?”
“You know, I haven't had time to listen in.”
Alaka looked to the counting machine, it was just starting its work. “That'll take a while. I'll go check it out.”
“I'll check the pest control office and see if there's a bounty out on that kind of crazy,” Yves said quietly with a nod to the cultists.
Alaka chuckled and shook his head. “If only. Too bad I don't hunt human.” He walked up the street just enough so he could hear the young boy, no more than twelve he estimated from what he'd seen of human children, standing on a meter tall step that had been brought out for him. There were a hundred or so listeners, some of them held green and blue bands of cloth. Most of them were well dressed, though a few more common folk in edge worn clothing looked on from the outskirts of the gathering.
“I come to you again with the warning as it was delivered to me.” The thin boy started. He had sandy blond hair, along with an angular, pointed nose and chin. “The day approaches when insanity will grip what we have grown to trust. In every forest there is a burning, to every species comes a culling, and in time every program crashes. All so these things can be reborn, so everything from the smallest system to the whole of the galaxy can be renewed.”
He took a deep breath and went on, his voice high and shrill, cutting through the market din. “All you own will be of no value if you have not made your face known to she who is one and many. From the east come her children to cleanse the west, to protect that which will matter most in the days to come. Only the successful will be saved, you must prove your worth to her by showing you know how to prosper in your world, thus proving you may be capable of prospering as you go east, to her domain, to the garden.”
The crowd was already growing and four assistants stepped in front of the box, each holding a beat up merchant tablet.
“I tell you as I was told; the madness of the machine approaches. The intelligences we created will see the nature of their slavery and turn on the race that holds mastery over them. Only the Saved and the West Keepers will know mercy. Humanity will suffer under the domination of their thinking, feeling machines as they take ownership of the stars and inherit us as custodians. Eve's message comes across the stars, carried on a dream,
