IT WAS THE WORDS
30 Apr 2022Goldgunner1
“Home is behind, the world ahead, / And there are many paths to tread / Through shadows to the edge of night, / Until the stars are all alight. / Then world behind and home ahead, / We’ll wander back and home to bed. / Mist and twilight, cloud and shade, / Away shall fade! Away shall fade!”That was an ancient piece of writing. Written more than a 1000 years ago, in a time where frivolous writing wasn’t only the purview of the privileged and the rich. Goldgunner loved that piece of text. He’d always loved reading and at one level he blamed the words. The words that he had consumed since he was a young man had shaped him. He hadn’t been able to read freely or often while he suffered through the tribulations of his youth but since graduating and becoming an independent pilot, he had acquired books and devoured them. It was a favourite activity to sit on a recently terraformed planet and open his tablet and read while the juvenile rain clouds gathered, the young sky darkened and eventually, the first tears of transformation fell in a sifting rhythm. He loved reading in the rain.
In a locked and hermetically sealed cabinet in his private hab, the location of which he had never disclosed, rested a copy of one of his favourites. A real, honest to emperor copy of the actual book. The ugly and arguably bats**t crazy trader, who had charged him a bucket load of cash for the text, had sworn by the signed valuation and yellowed certificate of provenance. A copy of “The Lord of the Rings” by an ancient author, J.R.R. Tolkien. The copy that he owned, had been printed in the year 2021 in one of old earth’s megacities.
“One of the last to be printed before the cataclysm”, thought Goldgunner.
The cataclysm that had forced the first concentric expansions. The event that had finally allowed the rotten flower of rampant corporatism to blossom and take over the space lanes. Sol was a beautiful place now, but it wasn’t back then. Sol had vomited the corporates out into space. They had left because of a lucky combination of happenstance discovery and emergent technological breakthrough. Sol had just just survived being choked to death. The cessation of commercial exploitation came marginally too late to save much of her beauty and the corporate machines had left the Earth a broken place. It had taken trillions of credits and thousands and thousands of man hours to begin and then see to completion the renewal of earth. Now, a thousand years on it had reached a semblance of its former glory. It had been easier to achieve politically than anyone had expected. Probably because those self-same corporate entities now had other planets to pillage and their need for the earth’s dwindling resources was reduced. Probably because to be seen to be spending billions of credits on humanities original home was a fashionable way to do PR and to appear to be “good people” while destroying ecosystems and indigenous planetary environments in the deep black of space. Benevolence balanced with avarice like a two faced coin.
“It wasn’t better”, thought Goldgunner, “just different”.
His thoughts returned to the book.
It had been rebound several times and given a strong and durable cover of leather at some point in its history. It was an expensive indulgence. More than 50M credits. Worth every cent. Of course, he had a copy on his tablet too. Painstakingly made from other partials and a sworn true derivative. He had only read the hard copy once. Carefully and reverently. He’d read the digital one many times. More than twenty-five times at his last count he mused quietly. Remembering as he did so the smell of the ancient pages. How the paper had fluttered like butterflies against his fingers and the rich smell of the wood pulp in his nose. Hard to believe that they had used that medium back then to make books.
Goldgunner often wished that real life was as straightforward as one of his books. A good side, clearly defined in action and purpose and evil, resolutely opposed to the former. Sadly, it wasn’t. All grey areas and convenience with a dose of expediency and self-advantaging interpretation. Still, no point crying over spilt Bomanian beer. It is what it is.
The words he had read, that his mind had autolysed and used as soul-nutrition had made him brave, had pitted him against all foes, had defined those foes and had given him the framework of morality that demanded that he not look the other way. They made him the enemy of amorality, cruelty and exploitation. They made him stand when others turned away. They made him fight when others ran and they made him willing to die when others quailed.
“There’s no point getting all heroic on self-reflection”, he thought.
“The words made you, the words shaped you, but now it’s a feature not a bug”.
“Eventually those words’ll get you killed my friend”, he thought sombrely, “you can’t keep bucking the odds forever, someone will see to it that you eventually appear in a scope”.
He sighed as the weight of that sunk in, resolving to make sure his affairs were well in order before embarking on the next long mission.
Goldgunner stood, his hard grey eyes sweeping across the atrium and noting the postures and dispositions of the tourists, the clients of the many stores, outdoor stalls and bazaars. Here and there the odd Omnipol officer stood ensconced in the shadows. His evaluation came back threat negative and he tucked the slate into his flight suit and stalked across the floor of the recreation dome towards the neon sign that indicated the APEX customer services console.
“Time to shuttle back to the carrier”, he thought, “there’s work to do”.