Three

Trewn Shepherd

 

March 15, 2310.  Earth

 

The group of eleven moved between trees, along a rarely traveled pass in what was once known as the Glarus Alps.  Patches of snow, protected from sunlight by the canopy high above, crunched under the feet of the nine men and two women. 

Trewn Shepherd, tall and rangy with close-cut light blonde hair, led the way, pushing the pace.  Dressed all in black -- tight microfiber weave designed to keep the body warm covered by outerwear and boots that rose halfway up his calves, Shepherd angled toward an uneven formation in a distant clearing, barely visible through the trees: the scattered remains of what may have been a series of Swiss chalets centuries earlier.  He had first spotted the "ruins" a year before as he walked the pass, looking for a landmark that would be clearly visible from the air.  The toppled buildings from another age, long since forgotten by most in modern society, fit the bill perfectly.

Shepherd glanced back at his companions as the late afternoon light began to fail. They were mostly familiar faces (he’d known all but two of them for years) including his longtime best friend, Garrity, who brought up the rear of the single-file line.  Shorter than Shepherd, with wide set eyes and a square jaw, Garrity needled people as a way of charming them -- both those he liked and disliked.  The innovative technique he had of teasing young women on his way to bedding them helped keep Garrity ahead of Shepherd on the score of who could boast greater success with the opposite sex.

Everyone in the group hailed from Halliston, seven miles to the south.  Populated by 40,000, it was no Berlin or Sydney.  Insignificant by comparison, to be sure.  Halliston was typical of the smaller, yet thoroughly modern communities that cropped up around the world following massive demolitions of crumbling cities which no longer served man's needs. Only a handful of metropolitan areas older than 125 years remained and, with the exception of Paris and London, each of those had been dramatically remade.

            Nearly all of Halliston’s residents could trace their roots back to North America and Western Europe prior to the tumult of mass colonization.  Spread into newly available areas made vacant by so many departing souls, none of them saw themselves as American, Canadian, English or French any longer.  Those were merely loose associations having no meaning in the current age.  They were Hallistonians, and had formed a community built around the collection of mostly small to moderate-sized industries delivering reliable prosperity.

            As with most other collectives in its category, Halliston glowed with the harmonious physical presence that fit the au courant.  Wood and stone and brick and glass in concert with the elements of nature, never competing.  The appealing idea of a "return to nature" now that the physical space was available once more, had been the dominant aesthetic in the wake of mass migration.  The only grand monuments to mankind's ability to erect imposing structures which had not been razed in the remaking of Earth were those that had either historical significance or demonstrated a rare artistry in their rendering.

            Communities such as Halliston were woven into the reclaimed landscape.  Only a little more than sixty years old, the home of Trewn Shepherd and his group would have struck the populations of "old Earth" as an idyllic hamlet, reminiscent of villages far back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, perhaps.  Yet Halliston had the advantage of modern, 24th century technology, well-hidden beneath the "natural" veneer.

 

V          V          V          V

 

            "Find a need and fill it," Noah Shepherd had preached to his children as a way to keep them focused on making their own individual paths through life.  Only when Trewn, the oldest of two, discovered that the platitude originated not with his father but with an Earth woman centuries earlier -- on par with things about godliness and cleanliness -- did he begin making fun of it.

            Ridiculing his father proved easy for teenage Trewn.  The phony motto, the business which put them on the upper end of Hallistonian families -- Advanced Disposal Conglomerate (serving the waste disposal needs of the continent for more than twenty years) -- and Noah Shepherd's perpetually earnest nature served as targets.  Yet despite holding him in low esteem, Trewn exploited all the comforts offered by his father's accomplishments.

            His mother, Roxanne, tried for a time to gently nudge Trewn out of the habit of lampooning his father, but she ultimately abandoned the effort.  Her own life was too caught up in penetrating the upper social circles in the community which resisted anyone affiliated with a disposal concern.

            Only Trewn’s sister, Faith, had a truly harmonious relationship with him.  Yet they were undeniably different and Faith’s on-best-behavior tendencies assured that they would become more distant the older they got.

 

V          V          V          V

 

            Still at the head of the group as they drew within thirty meters of the clearing, Shepherd held up a hand, stopping progress.

            "This is it.  If anybody wants to go back, you have just enough light left.  It's a clear path all the way.  No chance of getting lost.  Anyone?"

            Nothing the group had done to this point was illegal.  If they were to suddenly be discovered by a roving HSPB patrol floater (the drones that half-heartedly scrutinized unpopulated areas) nothing would come of it.  They would, undoubtedly, be questioned.  Some Bureau official would happen along within minutes of them being spotted, find out who they were and ask what brought them all to such an out-of-the-way spot.  No reason to make a big thing of it.  The HSPB and all who lived on Earth were confident about the security of the home planet's surface.

            But it would be strange.  Word would get back to Halliston, people likely to wonder why anyone would march out to such a location when the tranquility of communing with nature could easily be found within the city's environs.

            The true risk came next.  Trewn Shepherd and his ten companions were about to go off-Earth.  What's worse, they were headed beyond the protective expanses of C-Space.

            "Hell to pay."  That was the way Shepherd had described the consequences if caught.  Moreover, there would be genuine moral outrage at their intended destination, a notorious den of iniquity -- one of the few U-Space planets known to most Earthers:  Haver.

            Still, as Shepherd scanned the members of his group, waiting for someone to take him up on the suggestion of retreat, none made a move.  However, Peter Wells, the least likely person among them to be along on the trip, shifted his gaze from side to side, seeing if anyone else looked as nervous as he seemed to be.  Slightly, diminutive with close cut hair atop a round face with large eyes and a weak showing of whiskers on his chin, Wells was the  person Shepherd would have liked most to remove from the "outing". 

            He'd been forced upon the group, in a sense.  Garrity had gotten chatty about the planned trip after a long night of drinking weeks earlier, with Wells the only one in proximity to listen.  Wells told Shepherd and Garrity:  "Take me along or I let everyone in town know what you're up to." 

            They had no choice.  Shepherd shamed Garrity for his reckless behavior, but only received a question from his friend in return:

            "What the hell makes someone like Wells want to go?"

            Shepherd shrugged.  "Thinks some of the credibility the rest of us have will rub off on him."  Garrity nodded.  It made sense.  They both thought highly of themselves.

            Catching the jumpy glances from Wells at the prospect of returning to Halliston with no shame, Shepherd stared him down a little, as if doing so might shake him loose like shriveled leaf on a tree branch that will inevitably fall to the ground.  But Wells remained.

 

V          V          V          V

 

            The reality of such a trip as this, even for a go-his-own-way bundle of dissatisfaction such as Trewn Shepherd, would have been unthinkable two years earlier.  At that time, he still required his father's financial support and fought on a daily basis to put off the decision of how he'd make his own way.  It was on the brink of an ultimatum from his father (work for the family business or get something else going) that Trewn Shepherd discovered his salvation.

            Alongside friend Garrity, he had traveled to Berlin for a party hosted by a pair of Garrity's cousins -- Rueben and Selvey Elsdaard.  The Elsdaard brothers, somewhat notorious Berlin misfits, held gatherings frequently within the thrice-renovated building that had once served as the home of a high-ranking official of a regime in the distant past, when the city was still part of something called Germany.  It was a miracle that the place hadn't been razed to the ground in one of the many iterations of "remaking" Berlin.  The Elsdaard family had owned it for the past twenty years.  They had recently allowed Rueben and Selvey (two youngest in a brood of seven) to turn it into their own home when it became desirable to have the pair spend their lives apart from the rest of the family.

            Shepherd had assumed that he and Garrity were late when they arrived at the Elsdaard brothers' place.  The large, open room at the center of the house was already filled with people.  He'd discover later that parties hosted by the Elsdaards, although designated for a certain date and time, typically began before scheduled and ran on long past the expected end time, thus negating the concept of "an expected end time".

            Passing Rueben, the elder Elsdaard brother, on the way in, Shepherd and Garrity had been told to make their way around and sample the offerings (mustard curry and beans, salmon stroya, carrot and apple cashay, along with every sort of alcoholic-based concoction know to the upper crust types).  He'd see to them in a bit.  Selvey was nowhere in sight.

            The collection of thirty to forty people in the main room gave a good account of the diversity in the Elsdaards' circle of friends and acquaintances.  A baldheaded female here, feather-laden cape on a burly, bearded man there.  These individuals needed, on some level, to maintain a basic aura of difference and individuality -- particularly for a gathering such as this.  Shepherd and Garrity were rendered somewhat conspicuous in their own apparel (fashionable in Halliston, but dull among the crowd around them now).

            The walls of an adjoining “conversation room”, where Shepherd and Garrity drifted to avoid being as visible, were covered with hundreds of signatures from guests past, along with brief messages of admiration.  Shepherd read one that simply said, "Thank-you for the manna".

            A couple kissed in the corner and a middle-aged woman dressed all in white made pictures with colored writes on a large sketchpad.

            The common thread running through all those in attendance at the party was that everyone existed on the fringe of Berlin society.  Exact reasons for that varied.  Quirky artists, writers and "thinkers" mingled with scientific and technical minds who didn't fit into the establishment of their respective disciplines.  There were also the requisite ne'er-do-wells; self-indulgent, pleasure-seeking souls possessing as much money as lack of direction.

            There was another thing that bound the group together:  each had connection to a powerful scion in Berlin or the surrounding area.  These links helped to keep the outcasts from harassment or, worse, exile to a C-Space settlement.

            Such things happened.  Earth citizens producing offspring who were either mentally unstable, criminally inclined or outrageous in some manner often lost them to relocation if the root family was below the line of power and influence which could absolve such sins.

            No surprise that the people with whom the Elsdaards kept company found one another.  Such types, rejected (while being protected) by their families tended to flock and forge a community of their own.

            Shepherd and Garrity took seats as far from the amorous couple and artist as possible.  Not that any of the three people in question had given the boys from Halliston a passing glance.

            “Should we even stay?” Shepherd asked his friend.

            “Relax,” Garrity replied.  “It’s not that bad.  Let’s see what stimulants they have available, hey?”

            As they made their way back out of the conversation room they’d only just entered, Shepherd’s attention became snagged by an unusual mask on display behind glass.  Beside the door in the dimly lit room, neither of them had noticed it on their way in.

            “What the hell is it?”  Shepherd wondered aloud.

            "You don't know?" Garrity asked, taking a little pleasure in the way it made him seem more sophisticated than his friend.  "That's spetcher art."

            This was a relatively new phenomenon among a small group of Earthers.  Spetcher art, thus named for the derogatory term attached to people of U-Space by certain Earthers, was nearly impossible to get, considering the seemingly impenetrable blockade between C-Space and U-Space.  The powers-that-be on Earth considered it incoming contraband and degrading to mankind.

            Every culture in the long history of man had found a means to express creativity and tell stories of their people through art.  The men and women of U-Space had no reason to deviate from the tradition.  In some collectives it was a way to pass the time between shifts of hard labor.  Others did is as an escape from the dreariness of the underground, poorly lit, disease-ridden communities in which they found themselves.  Or so the story went.

            Spetcher art was en vogue for underground communities such as the one Selvey and Rueben Elsdaard presided over.  Primarily, it served as an additional way to distinguish themselves from the rest of Earth.; a mark of their superior sophistication.

            In truth, however, the joke was on the Elsdaards and their fellow collectors.  The overwhelming majority of spetcher art did not come from U-Space.  It wasn’t the output of idiosyncratic, exiled branches of the human family at all.  Most of it, including the mask that had caught Shepherd’s eye, was made by cagey cargo joks in C-Space; a nice way to make some extra currency.

            Once these joks who traveled between Earth and various C-Space settlements (almost never coming close to U-Space) found that there was an appetite for such ‘art’ among the touch-me-nots of Earth, the game was on.

            In fact, it became a running gag among the joks to see how ugly and unappealing they could make the masks and carvings while still selling them for obscene sums.

            They would laugh together (sometimes uncontrollably) as they fashioned the most awful things, anticipating someone like the Elsdaards grasping it, clutching it close to their heart and declaring love.

            But at least everyone was happy.

            It was all a revelation to Shepherd.  Halliston was what people in past eras would have called "provincial" and such a concept as art created by the peoples of U-Space would probably take several more years to break through the bubble that comfortably isolated Hallistonians.  The entire gathering in the Elsdaard's home, in fact, was a brand new experience for Shepherd, allowing him to experience things he'd only been vaguely aware of, and mostly through Garrity.

            While the Elsdaards and their friends were not the only such community of misfits to be found in large cities around the world, they could be regarded as the most notorious.  The relocation of the Earth capital from London fifteen years earlier (even before the Elsdaards helped fill out the ranks of the Berlin outcasts) was initially thought a near cinch to go to Berlin.  When Sydney was chosen instead, Berlin elders convinced themselves and many others in the city that it was the notoriety of their fringe community which had cost them.  True or not, the notion wasn't enough to overcome the dedication by powerful families to shield their wayward members from persecution.  Hope sprang eternal that these black sheep relatives would find their way back to the accepted norm of Berlin and Earth culture.

            "Do you think that they're really that ugly out there?  The people in U-Space?"  Garrity asked, studying the mask.  The eyes of the thing were wide set and the nose had its home higher on the face than seemed possible for a human -- the nostrils on line with the top edge of the cheekbones.  The mouth was grotesquely wide as well -- an altogether disconcerting visage being the cumulative effect.

            "I doubt it.  They made it that way to stand out.  You know the way some artists are."

            "Not really.  But what about all the stories?  Living on strange planets for hundreds of years.  They could be pretty badly deformed after so long."

            "It hasn't been hundreds of years.  It's been, maybe ninety?"

            "You don't know what you're talking about," Garrity said with a shake of his head.

            "It's a rare one," Rueben commented upon joining them during one of his laps through the house.

            "Rare is good," Garrity said, as if to fill the silence.

            "My cousin here tells me that your father has his own space elevators, just outside Halliston.  Is that right?" Rueben Elsdaard had leaned close to Shepherd to create greater privacy.  Even in the friendly confines, it seemed, he was anxious to avoid making his inquiry known.

            Shepherd nodded, looking from the mask to Rueben, whose eyes were filled with what one might call the glint of possibility. 

            "Three of them," Shepherd replied.  "Uses them for his business."

            "Of course he does.  Privately owned space elevators will never be legal.  How is that business, by the way?  Waste disposal, isn't it?  Something you hope to get into?"

            It was the first family resemblance to Garrity that had shown up in Elsdaard -- the playful mockery.  Shepherd never hesitated to tell his closest friend to piss off in such instances, but he wasn’t comfortable doing so with an Elsdaard.

            Selvey joined his brother and cousin, was introduced to Shepherd and suggested that they move to a private room where they could discuss something of interest.

            "How closely are the space elevators on your father's compound watched?" Selvey Elsdaard asked pointedly.  He was clearly different from his brother, not so willing to waste time on trivial things.  The room the Elsdaards had led them to was fairly small, with walls painted a deep, blood red.  The single window was well covered from the inside so that even on the brightest Berlin day, no sunlight could get through.

            "Not too much.  The people who run the company -- it's left to them."

            "And you have, what?  Transient labor doing the actual work on and off the lifts?"

            "Sure."  Such non-permanent residents of Earth -- the product of other worlds in C-Space -- were a necessary presence for the dirty jobs on Earth that no true citizen wanted to do.  Even with the forward march of technology, calloused hands were required in some practices.

            "My brother is building up to propose to you that while it might be garbage going up, it could profit coming back," Rueben said with a sly smile.

            The Elsdaards didn't have any use or desire for Shepherd's company and their party was "reduced" by his presence, along with that of the cousin that they cared nothing about.  The opportunity, however, was genuine.  On that very evening, Trewn Shepherd took his first step toward becoming a smuggler of contraband art.  It would also lead him down a path of curiosity, toward the type of radical experience to be had on Haver.

 

V          V          V          V

 

            "How long do we have to wait?" Wells asked.  He was still nervous, looking past trees into the clearing.  Shepherd had directed everyone in the group to grab a piece of ground under cover of the trees, to stay out of the clearing and relax until the transport came.  Wells was the only one still on his feet.  He peered back over his shoulder from where they'd come, as if expecting followers to be on their trail.

            "We wait for as long as it takes.  This isn't as simple as arranging passage to Berlin, Wells," Shepherd replied.  He was sure to couch his response in enough irritation to silence the unwanted companion for as long as possible.

            Thirty minutes passed.  The ruins that marked the rendezvous point had almost disappeared in the darkness.  One of the two female members of the group, Cilla Sulltrone, had moved to the very edge of the tree line.  She gazed toward the remains of the old buildings, hands clasped behind her back. 

Shepherd had been surprised at her interest in going on the trip.  The Sulltrone family was on par with the Elsdaards in terms of pull and influence -- particularly amazing for a family that maintained its primary residence in a virtual hamlet such as Halliston.

            Cilla was invited by Garrity, who had no hesitation to invite a person he didn't know all that well on such a dangerous outing.  Cilla, in fact, wasn't known intimately by many in Halliston.  Although born there, she had spent extended periods being educated in Berlin and Paris.  Her schooling over, however, she was back home for good.

            Shepherd understood that Garrity had designs on Cilla Sulltrone.  She would be appealing for every imaginable reason to any male.  Shepherd also told Garrity that it would never happen. 

"You're not for her," he'd said, drawing a sly smile from Garrity.

            "See anything out there?" Shepherd asked Cilla, moving away from the rest of the group to join her at the edge of the tree line.

            "Less and less every minute," she replied.

            Cilla, a year younger than Shepherd had short, dark brown hair and the lithe build of an athlete.  She had, in fact, competed in swimming during her school years.  Her mouth unintentionally found its way into a pout when became lost in thought, as it had just before Shepherd approached her.

            "How often do the floaters come by?" Cilla asked.

            "No set schedule as far as I can tell.  The three times I've been out here before, I only saw one -- and it was a little north of the clearing."

            "They're more common than that in town where no one needs them.  Makes you wonder who picks the routes they travel."

            Shepherd shrugged.  He really didn’t care.

            "Our connection's just a little late.  Don't let it worry you."

            "It doesn't," she said calmly, keeping her eyes on the ruins.  "Tell me, do you know what those buildings were?"

            "Nobody does.  Too long ago."

            "Prisoners were tortured there -- hundreds of years in the past.  During a war.  A world war.  People aren't supposed to know -- people in general, I mean."

            "And why not?"

            "Because it's history...and it's not pleasant.  It can't be changed now and knowing about it doesn't help anyone in their lives.  That's the reasoning as I understand it."

            Shepherd glanced at the disappearing buildings and then back at Cilla.

            "Really?  That's true?"

            The sound of an approaching transport ended the conversation.  As their "ride" came into view, Shepherd turned to the others in the group who were already coming to their feet.

 

            "This is it," he called out, over the transport's noise that grew steadily louder.

            One by one, the eleven marched into the clearing, Wells bringing up the rear with an expression that suggested he should have taken the opportunity to return to Halliston when it was given.  Garrity appeared at his side, urging him on.

            "Come along, Wells.  This is going to change you for the better.  You'll finally have something interesting to tell people about your life."