The Price of Peace

The crowd jostled with the thrashing energy of a dam about to burst. Elbows dug into him, but Erik knew how to navigate unseen and squeeze into the tight spaces and edged ever closer to the front of the mob that would relish stepping on him. He pushed his way to one of the corridors where people were funneled into a single line, a desperate herd that sought to escape the dreadful planet.

They shuffled forward, one at a time, heads down, trying to avoid raising any suspicion. The officer behind the glass panel nodded at him and Erik approached the glass box.

“Place your hand on the scanner,” the officer said.

Erik complied and it beeped.

“Lottery, huh?” the man said. “Look into the camera. Good, now move there,” he pointed to the side.

Erik stood facing the doors. Waiting.

The officer knocked on the glass. “Put your hand on the scanner, boy.”

He shuffled, embarrassed, and placed his hand. The doors slid open into a metal cube that trapped him inside. Machines whirred for a few seconds, before the way forward opened.

It all seemed to be going well. Too well, even. No one had stopped him yet, no one said the lottery was a scam or a trap, but there was time yet. The galaxy was finally at peace, but humans always found a way to fight each other. He gazed open-mouthed at the cavernous embarcation room, all sparkling steel and clear glass, clean and orderly, free of the chaos outside.

Ashamed of his ragged clothes, he found a corner near his embarcation terminal and sank down to the cold floor. He wrapped his arms around the faded gym bag which held his only possessions and looked out the sweeping windows, but there was only the dark haze of smog lit by the diffuse light of an obscured sun. High-rises pierced the smoke, shining with their own light, containing their own separate worlds.

When the time finally came to board his heart raced as he climbed the few last steps to the ship. The stewardess smiled and nodded as he passed. He’d done it. He was really escaping this doomed world.

A fresh start.

In the ship, Erik opened the door to his cabin and saw three other people already seated and gazes drifted his way. He shrivelled beneath their stares, hunching over as he sank into his seat. The soft gel gave under his weight before hardening, molding around his frame as he fumbled with the restraints.

“Here,” the young man next to him said. “Let me help you.”

Erik stared with wide eyes as he swiftly connected all the ends, securing him to the seat.

“Damian,” the man said, extending a hand.

“Erik.” He shook Damian’s hand lightly, expecting it to pull away.

“Lottery winner?”

Erik looked down, avoiding his gaze.

“Don’t worry friend, I am not blind to my own hypocrisy,” he cast an angry look to the two other passengers. “My parents bought my seat. I know it is not fair. But at the same time, I couldn’t refuse. I hope you don’t hate me for it.”

“I don’t,” Erik admitted. “I would pay too, if I could. Anyone would.”

The doors to the cabin slid open and a stewardess peeked her head in.

“Do not leave your seats please,” she eyed over the restraints. “We are about to take off.”

The engines roared to life. The world shook and all sounds melted in the screams of roaring fire. Erik was pushed down into the gel. The weight on his chest grew and he sank down until he almost disappeared into the seat.

Then… weightless.

Free, as his planet tumbled slowly beneath them, swallowed in dark gray clouds and ringed with twinkling lights of stations and spacecraft, a world lost in a darkness of its own making.

They docked with the transport ship, the behemoth that would carry him across the void between stars, where they were herded into a room that blossomed into a cavern several floors high. Four pods rose from pillars of machinery and tangled tubes and cables. The hum of turning gears and gurgling pumps was a constant drum.

Their guide, a man in an armor suit, swiveled on his heels to face them.

“Remove your clothes, please,” he said.

One by one, he pressed an injector to their arms. Erik felt a numbness spreading where it pierced his skin.

“Up you go,” the man said. “Just lie down.”

Erik climbed the metal steps, feeling woozy and sleepy as he held to the railings for support. At the summit, there was a single metal slab carved into the flat surface. He laid down on it.

With a clank, the platform descended. Lids slid into place in layers and all was darkness. He felt the platform reach the bottom. His breath echoed in the cryochamber as he shivered.

Machines whirred and buzzed all around him. A deep gurgling sound came from the top, thick syrup dripping. The warm viscous liquid touched his skin, rising, slowly, enveloping, swimming. Floating in the warm liquid, his mind drifted away into sleep, unaware of all the things his body would suffer to survive.

“What do you think it’s going to be like?” Damian asked as they stood in line to disembark from the ship.

“If the pictures are true, wild forests and untamed valleys. Clear skies and flowing, clean rivers,” Erik answered.

“Low expectations, huh?” Damian chuckled.

The stewardess at the door smiled up at him and he pressed his finger to the scanner she held out.

“Erik,” she said. “Here is your ticket. You will be present at this location,” she pointed with her finger. “At this time. Do not lose it.”

“Ticket for what?”

“For your ship of course, to take you to your destination.”

“This isn’t it?” Erik asked.

“Oh no, darling. This is just a way-point. You need a few more days before you can go into cryo again. But don’t worry, just enjoy yourself, have some fun. Now please, give me your hand.”

Off-kilter and stunned, Erik extended his arm. She wrapped a bracelet around his wrist, made of flowing metal that contracted, seamless and tight against his skin.

“With that you can pay for what you need and get a room in a listed hotel, just take your pick.”

Erik traversed the umbilical out of the ship and descended the tower. Faster. Faster, until he was running down the steps, running outside, where he saw a sky clear of smog, of ship trails, of acid rain, just… blue. Blue and endless. The sun was high, tinged with its own bright teal glare, blazing down with fury. He breathed in the fresh air.

“So, where’s your embark?” Damian asked, breaking the spell.

Erik showed him the ticket.

“Same place, lucky us buddy!” Damian said. “Come on, let's have some fun.”

The train into town was slow and lazy, which suited Erik just fine as he marveled at green fields that sprawled to the horizon, gentle plains waving with the breeze. He saw animals he had only seen in videos, cows and goats roaming wild, birds dancing in the sky.

When the dream came to an end, they were greeted by wide stone houses, painted in feverish colors into a picturesque town. Trees lined the center of every street, broad or narrow, with arching bridges over twisting streams. In the distance, there was the murmuring of a waterfall even as the train rumbled to a stop.

Erik followed Damian, who walked with the certainty of a local despite his ignorance, stumbling his way onwards until they found a hotel, a squat building of marble, lost in an alley.

“I’ll get a burger,” Damian said to the waiter inside.

“Same for me,” Erik said. He still expected to be kicked out at any moment. The others were dressed in suits and long dresses, while he still carried his old rags.

The burgers came, steaming and dripping with molten cheese. Erik bit into it and hot juices spilled into his mouth, the meat almost dissolving on his tongue. Actual meat, not protein substitutes, another wonder of the colonies.

The days passed in a blur, a cloud of happiness that turned all memories into haze. Damian soon found there were few places their bracelets couldn’t reach. They hopped across bars and restaurants, they chatted with girls beyond their league and even rode horses in the open plains. At night, he glanced up at the sky and saw stars, bright and clear, twinkling, inviting, a whole universe waiting. When rain came, he ran for safety, only to be amazed by Damian dancing and splashing like a kid. It poured gently, soft, cold, and it didn’t burn into his skin.

It was true. For once, he expected the worst and it didn’t come. No one hauled him off to a prison, no one stole what he had or kicked him out at the mere sight. For once, he was happy, and he had a friend he could actually trust, one which had no reason to take anything from him, one who showed him there was still beauty left if you were willing to see it.

That was it, the reason nobles bankrupted themselves to buy tickets, why wars were fought over distant stars, why billions perished in the centuries of war. And it was all worth it.

Erik felt like a new man. A rebirth, a fresh start. He no longer stood out from the crowd, just another regular colonist waiting to board the ship towards a new, better life. The procedure was familiar by now, and he eagerly slept across decades to awaken in a new place. Years slept away, until he opened his eyes to a cavernous expanse of dark and rough stone.

He was on the bare stone floor, surrounded by others, most still sleeping, some struggling to get up. This was not a ship.

He searched the darkness for Damian, but he was not there, all the faces were unfamiliar and the others were just as confused as him, so he followed the sound of crushing rocks echoing from outside, down a long corridor dug into the stone, barely tall enough to stand.

He found a man at the end of the tunnel, hammering the rocks with a pneumatic hammer. Erik shouted, but the man could not hear him. He tapped the man’s shoulder.

He swung wildly in surprise, and the hammer barely missed Erik.

“What do you want?” the man said.

“Where am I?” Erik asked. “I’m a colonist, I was…”

The man smiled sadly at him, laid down his hammer, and rested a hand on his shoulder. “You’re not a colonist, boy. You are a slave.”

A new life. A new colony. Trapped in darkness and stone without even a glimpse of the sky, choking down dust, eating bland nutripaste, cut off from the world and chained. A fresh start, somehow worse than where he started.

Erik held the bundle of wire, unspooling it behind him slowly. Ahead, Jack, the first person he met here, led the way into the darkness. This was the fate of those that could not pay. The lottery. The lie.

“Don’t let it coil or tangle,” Jack said for the tenth time, the same instructions Erik had heard every shift over the last weeks. The cramped tunnels had become a second home, familiar, constricting, claustrophobic, without even the breeze of air recyclers, much less the green plains and blue skies of the last planet.

They kept going deeper into the darkness, deeper into new branches, recently dug, until they were forced to crawl forward to the end.

“Come up here,” Jack said, making room for him. “See the explosive here? Now, just twist these ends. Good. Now tape them. And run!”

They crawled out in a mad rush, stumbling up the tunnels towards the barracks. There was no telling how long the supervisor might wait to blow it, considering he was safe behind steel doors. They burst into the relative brightness of the barracks, where all the others wailed, and hid behind a barricade of rusting metal beds.

Erik saw a flash of light racing across the wire, emerging from the large steel doors at the other end. The supervisor had activated it.

The blast roiled over him. Pebbles and dust rained from the ceiling. But it did not collapse. No one celebrated. No one even seemed to register it. Life or death had stopped mattering after the last revolt was swiftly crushed.

The bolted metal doors at the other end ground open, and two guards entered, armored and armed. The being–the thing–followed them. It seemed to drift, dragging spiralling robes across the floor. The head, the torso, or whatever it was, emerged from the robes and blossomed outwards like an overly inflated balloon about to pop, pale white and glossy. A single dark, reflective strip ran across the circumference and a ping resounded from it like a sonar, bouncing over the walls.

Erik backed away until he met the stone walls, as far as he could go in the haze of dust. The being floated for a few seconds, as if appraising all of them, then simply reversed direction and left, the metallic robes clinking on the stone floors as it drifted off. None of the others even looked at the doors, they just picked up their tools and went back to work.

“Let’s get going,” Jack said, pick in hand.

“What… What was that?” Erik mumbled.

“Don’t you know yet, boy? Those are your masters, and we are the price of peace.”

Labor. Hostages. Insurance for a treaty signed in blood. He wondered where Damian was, if he woke up in another mine, alone, without any of his luxuries, his charm gone to waste, or if his ticket bought an actual life.