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The worker stopped the Former, and paused to wipe the sweat from his forehead. A gentle breeze blew over the xenofungal surroundings. The machinery of the Former whirred gradually to a halt, and then there was silence.
He thought over the events of the past year, which had culminated in his being assigned to the Former team near Morgan Hole. Morgan Hole taken from the Hive in MY 2187 in the great Morgan-Hive war that ended in 2201 with the great free industrial might of Morgan Industries crushing the slave-based communistic industrial might of the Human Hive. Sheng-ji Yang, the deposed Hive Despot, had fled in a personal jet from the smoldering remains of his final base, Deep Clustering, which was now Morgan Clustering. He had been sighted by some Gaian scouts in the Monsoon Jungle in 2203, but that was the last anyone had seen of him. It was unknown whether he had re-established an empire on the unexplored Great Northern Land, or had fallen victim to mind worms and was rotted in some xenofungus patch. Perhaps, with the new University space program underway, a complete map of Planet would be created, and the answer would be known – but Zakharov probably wouldn’t share the map. He and Morgan had been on bad terms ever since Zakharov, at some Gaian bribe, many suspected, had changed from a Free Market to a Green-based economy.
But that was all in the past. It was, after all, 2224. And although he had been a crewmember of the Missile Foil critical in weakening the Hole of Aspiration so that infantrymen could breach its perimeter defense without being seen by the sensors, he was no longer in the army. The land around here was rich, and he had settled down as soon as the war ended. He had risen from working in the fields to being head of the Recycling Tanks, and just 2 months ago had become head of a Former team, in charge of feeding Nwabudike Morgan’s latest craze – thermal boreholes.
A thermal borehole had been experimentally dug by the Peacekeepers in 2167, as part of their Weather Paradigm project. Pravin Lal had made boreholes a well kept secret until 2192, when the Pact between the Morganites and the Peacekeepers was signed. Morgan was especially close to Lal because the Morganites were the only other faction to have embraced democracy, the Gaians keeping to a Frontier government, the University and Spartans running Police States, and Miriam Godwinson some form of a radical Catholic Theocracy.
Thermal Boreholes soon proved their worth. The immense holes in the ground, if those complex pieces of engineering could be called that, produced more minerals than all mines except for the fabled ultra-rich one near New Jerusalem. Or so went the Believing propaganda; nobody had ever been to Believing territory and come out alive. Boreholes had also produced more energy than the richest solar collector on Planet (although, claimed the University, with Echelon Mirrors under construction near the Sunny Mesa, that may change soon) and energy meant MONEY. It was, in short, a windfall.
So Nwabudike had ordered a borehole for every base. Trouble was, to tap those immense resources, one had to dig all the way down to the magma. And that took a long, long, time. 24 years for most ones – if you had to clear out rocks or fungus it took even longer. The Peacekeepers had learned some kind of secret from their Weather Paradigm study, and could build them in 16 years. But such a secret was so confidential, that it was not to be shared, even with the closest Pact Brother. Morgan completely understood; he would not divulge the secrets of his Merchant Exchange to the U.N. either.
When he had been promoted to the Former team, they’d already been going at it 10 years. It had taken a while for the Former team to find the exact right place for the hole to be drilled, and the money for drilling had taken a while to be appropriated for such a minor base as Morgan Hole. It, after all, only had 40,000 people in it, compared to the 130,000 at Morgan Industries, where the first Morgan borehole had been completed only a year ago.
The Former team had Saturdays off. But he liked taking out a single Former machine and working on the borehole on Saturdays. The borehole would get done slightly faster, and he liked the time to be alone with his thoughts.
Suddenly, a noise in the air startled him out of his reverie. Looking up he saw, wonder of wonders, a fighter plane! He had heard of such needlejets, and read of them at the Hole Library, but he had never seen one in person. He also had had no idea that the Morganites had been producing military aircraft. Morgan was a pacifist, and would rather trade and build up infrastructure than fight. He was much unlike the warlike Santiago and the fanatical Miriam.
Then he froze. Morgan had not built that needlejet. For emblazoned on the wings of the airplane was the blue Yin-Yang emblem of the long believed extinct Human Hive.
There was silence again, but this time the worker wasn’t sitting in the control box of the Former to enjoy it. He was running, running, towards the gates of Morgan Hole, as rapidly as possible. The Former remained, desolate, on the edge of the great pit, its vast machinery waiting in vain to be set once again into motion.
He thought over the events of the past year, which had culminated in his being assigned to the Former team near Morgan Hole. Morgan Hole taken from the Hive in MY 2187 in the great Morgan-Hive war that ended in 2201 with the great free industrial might of Morgan Industries crushing the slave-based communistic industrial might of the Human Hive. Sheng-ji Yang, the deposed Hive Despot, had fled in a personal jet from the smoldering remains of his final base, Deep Clustering, which was now Morgan Clustering. He had been sighted by some Gaian scouts in the Monsoon Jungle in 2203, but that was the last anyone had seen of him. It was unknown whether he had re-established an empire on the unexplored Great Northern Land, or had fallen victim to mind worms and was rotted in some xenofungus patch. Perhaps, with the new University space program underway, a complete map of Planet would be created, and the answer would be known – but Zakharov probably wouldn’t share the map. He and Morgan had been on bad terms ever since Zakharov, at some Gaian bribe, many suspected, had changed from a Free Market to a Green-based economy.
But that was all in the past. It was, after all, 2224. And although he had been a crewmember of the Missile Foil critical in weakening the Hole of Aspiration so that infantrymen could breach its perimeter defense without being seen by the sensors, he was no longer in the army. The land around here was rich, and he had settled down as soon as the war ended. He had risen from working in the fields to being head of the Recycling Tanks, and just 2 months ago had become head of a Former team, in charge of feeding Nwabudike Morgan’s latest craze – thermal boreholes.
A thermal borehole had been experimentally dug by the Peacekeepers in 2167, as part of their Weather Paradigm project. Pravin Lal had made boreholes a well kept secret until 2192, when the Pact between the Morganites and the Peacekeepers was signed. Morgan was especially close to Lal because the Morganites were the only other faction to have embraced democracy, the Gaians keeping to a Frontier government, the University and Spartans running Police States, and Miriam Godwinson some form of a radical Catholic Theocracy.
Thermal Boreholes soon proved their worth. The immense holes in the ground, if those complex pieces of engineering could be called that, produced more minerals than all mines except for the fabled ultra-rich one near New Jerusalem. Or so went the Believing propaganda; nobody had ever been to Believing territory and come out alive. Boreholes had also produced more energy than the richest solar collector on Planet (although, claimed the University, with Echelon Mirrors under construction near the Sunny Mesa, that may change soon) and energy meant MONEY. It was, in short, a windfall.
So Nwabudike had ordered a borehole for every base. Trouble was, to tap those immense resources, one had to dig all the way down to the magma. And that took a long, long, time. 24 years for most ones – if you had to clear out rocks or fungus it took even longer. The Peacekeepers had learned some kind of secret from their Weather Paradigm study, and could build them in 16 years. But such a secret was so confidential, that it was not to be shared, even with the closest Pact Brother. Morgan completely understood; he would not divulge the secrets of his Merchant Exchange to the U.N. either.
When he had been promoted to the Former team, they’d already been going at it 10 years. It had taken a while for the Former team to find the exact right place for the hole to be drilled, and the money for drilling had taken a while to be appropriated for such a minor base as Morgan Hole. It, after all, only had 40,000 people in it, compared to the 130,000 at Morgan Industries, where the first Morgan borehole had been completed only a year ago.
The Former team had Saturdays off. But he liked taking out a single Former machine and working on the borehole on Saturdays. The borehole would get done slightly faster, and he liked the time to be alone with his thoughts.
Suddenly, a noise in the air startled him out of his reverie. Looking up he saw, wonder of wonders, a fighter plane! He had heard of such needlejets, and read of them at the Hole Library, but he had never seen one in person. He also had had no idea that the Morganites had been producing military aircraft. Morgan was a pacifist, and would rather trade and build up infrastructure than fight. He was much unlike the warlike Santiago and the fanatical Miriam.
Then he froze. Morgan had not built that needlejet. For emblazoned on the wings of the airplane was the blue Yin-Yang emblem of the long believed extinct Human Hive.
There was silence again, but this time the worker wasn’t sitting in the control box of the Former to enjoy it. He was running, running, towards the gates of Morgan Hole, as rapidly as possible. The Former remained, desolate, on the edge of the great pit, its vast machinery waiting in vain to be set once again into motion.
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