Anil lead the way to the train station. Their guards had left them and they were able to move without escort.
Rodney found it surprising how clean the city was. “I’ve only been here once before, and I didn’t spend much time on the surface. Actually, I don’t think I left the ship yards, but I had no idea it would be this clean. It’s very different from Bruna.”
“Bruna Zeta 3 is the first and last free settlement colony,” Anil said. “They established that before the Earth Council of Governments fully understood the scale they needed to operate at.”
“Where are the machines? The men?” Tony asked. He was still dragging.
“The center here is largely run by women. The men live in barracks and guild halls in the outskirts.”
“They don’t live with their families?”
“There is no marriage here in the traditional sense,” Anil pointed at a young woman leading a group of young children down the street, like a mother duck and her ducklings. “She will be a ward mother. The women live in the center, governed by a hierarchy of women, a matriarchy. The men are called in as necessary to contribute. They have allocated jobs for the men to do. Largely for their mental health. Almost all of them involve physical labor.”
“They sound more like cattle than men.”
“They are free to leave whenever they want,” Anil observed, “with one stipulation. They may not take any of the women or the children with them.”
Rodney noticed that sobered Tony up a little. “Are you saying I couldn’t come back and date Chaiwat?”
“Only if she invited you,” Anil answered.
“Well that sucks,” Tony replied.
“The number of women in New Washington vastly outnumbers the men for that and other reasons.”
“So you’re saying I may have fathered some children while I was here?”
“You definitely contributed to the making of new humans,” Anil answered.
“But.. will I get to see them?”
“Again, that is largely up to the women. In general, no. They find it is more effective to supplant the fathers with their teacher fathers.”
“Teacher father?”
“Yes, the women raise the babies until they are children. Men are involved in carefully scripted roles during this period to give the children a healthy and balanced male perspective, and to role model for them appropriate behaviors and attitudes. However, once the children reach a certain development level, they are separated by gender. The males are sent to live with the men, But this time usually much farther way, say in the country. It is not wholly unlike the boarding schools on Earth. The females may stay, or also be distributed around the country, but they are raised almost exclusively by the women.”
“They break up the families when the kids hit puberty?”
“Just before,” Anil explained. “Remember their goal is to maximize human production. This system is not entirely different than that of the Bonobos on Earth. A matriarchal primate. Humans share as much DNA in common with them as with Chimpanzees, and in some ways we are more similar. The females live in the center of the tribe in clusters. The males live on the outskirts, “protecting” the tribe. The Matriarch sets the rules for where and when the tribe will move. The individual females select which male they are interested in and summon him to the center for breeding.
“And just like here, the babies are raised in the safest space - the center of the tribe, and when they reach a certain age, the younger males are pushed out to the edge. The young females remain in the center of the tribe, learning the ways of the females.”
“That’s crazy,” Tony said.
“It is different from what you know,” Anil said. “But highly functional. And it works because the citizens want it to work. They invest in making it work. Humankind is a very adaptable species.”
“What about transgenders what happens to them?”
Anil slowed down. “You want to be very careful here talking about that. This society is very kind, very generous, but remember, their mission. It is all about the procreation and expansion of the human population. Any member who can not contribute to that mission is considered… unnecessary.”
“Are you saying they euthanize them?” Rodney asked a little appalled.
“No, but they do not stay. They are ‘exported’. The colonies are all desperate of population and labor and the rules are different on many of them. There are organizations which are very passionate about helping those who do not “fit” the mission of New Washington. Even Earth routinely sends emissaries here to collect those who are unable to participate in the program.”
They arrived at the sky station, a long narrow building of gleaming white. In truth, it looked like the landing pod of a star carrier constructed on the ground, and it probably was. The building had to be nearly half a mile long, with a high roof and triangular openings at each end. The base was open with windows - Rodney knew on a star carrier these would be launch tubes, but here they seemed to be more decorative to hide their purpose. Scrambling fighters and drones to protect the colony. They were like canons that fired aircraft instead of ordinance.
Above that level stood the transportation deck, where the long mono rail fields dipped from the upper atmosphere to the surface to pass through the giant triangular openings and then back up to the sky. The trains could enter here traveling nearly 1,000 KM per hour slow to a hault, and then accelerate to near orbit again.
The entire structure glistened white in the sun like the corpse of some celestial whale. It was hard to see the whole structure from the ground, let alone get a grasp on its full size and dimensions. This is what replaced the airports and star ports of most cities and other planets.
Sky rails like rainbow colored threads branched out from each end of the tunnel shaped building, leading to all corners of the colony, but in general, they followed the orange slide shaped wedge of the Human Settlement. Borders between races were strictly guarded.
“I haven’t seen any Xenotypes,” Rodney said, using the local term for “non human species.”
“You will soon,” Anil said leading them up the escalators toward the transport platform. “The representative colonies here tend to focus their mingling at the poles - the Metrópoli. The biggest is the South Pole. That’s where we are headed. It is strange you would think there would be more cross traffic, but it is extremely rare, only two of the 12 settlements have permanent lines that connect them latitudinally. Everyone else trades at the markets.”
Rodney felt the weight of gravity pulling at him as the fatigue made his legs feel sluggish. He tried to stay in shape and spend a healthy amount of time planet side, but he’d grown accustomed to having escalators and powered walk ways, not to mention transit drones at his beck and call. He tried to remember the last time he walked from one end of a city to another. “Why don’t they have have drone cars?” he asked Anil.
“They do, they just don’t pickup men.”
Rodney looked around, and sure enough, the cars he saw carried only women. “Well son of gun. I thought they were private cars.”
“They might as well be to us,” Anil said. “Here we’re at the escalators now.” A series of switch back moving staircases rose from street level up to the towering train station. Now that they were closer, Rodney could see more lines, coming from different parts of the region entering the mouth of the station. He also started to notice specs hovering around, countless drones of various sizes carrying packages. Some flew in clumps, like schools of fish. Others moved in dotted lines, perfectly spaced out, and still others zoomed around like drunken bees.
Tony grabbed Rodney by the arm, and pointed to a tall man with purple skin towering over the crowd. “What is that?”
“That Mr. Capasella, is a Druk” - Anil pronounced it droock. The Druk was humanoid, had pale lavender skin, like an Easter egg that had a few dips in the purple die and his hair was yellow. His most striking feature was not his skin color but his sapphire blue. They glittered like gemstones in his head with no scolera. The Druk had no whites of the eyes. He wore a simple tan tunic, much like the one Rodney had selected, over brown trousers with leather sandals on his enormous feet. Despite being tall, his shoulders towered over everyone else’s head, he kept pace with the crowd.
Rodney started to see more of Galactic Union citizenry as they worked their way into the station. They saw a pack of Balmons with blond, brown, and black fur. Balmons fur is luxurious enough to make a Labrador jealous. They were smaller than most humans, but not always, and walked on two legs, but they had thick yet dexterous pads for hands and feet, almost as if the snout of an elephant had flattened out. Rodney thought it strange that their faces were so human, but he knew that was the nature of the human brain - to find a face.
It wasn’t until they crossed paths with a train of Zorvyn, rolling along like multi colored rubber spiky balls. They were half the size of a human but as wide as they were tall. One rolled up to Anil, it’s translucent skin allowed a universe of sparkling and pin point lights to show through its skin. There was no obvious eyes, but with a wet sticky sound a mouth opened facing Anil and asked in passable common, “You Good Sir. Do you happen to know the way to the Northern Market?” Anil glanced at his wristcom then answered, “You should be able to catch a train there from platform four.”
The ball bowed, which Rodney did not think was possible, then waved half its spikes in a forward motion like a wave of tiny pine trees blowing in the wind. The multicolor array of half a dozen spikey balls behind it sparkled in a synchronized pattern, and the Zorvyn and its kin rolled off. Tony’s mouth was agape.
“Come on kid, you haven’t seen anything yet.” Rodney pushed Tony ahead and up into the train station.
The interior of the New Washington Main Sky Train Terminal was like watching choreographed chaos. Trains and drones flew in from every direction over head but the crush of people - and non-people started to mix. The scene reminded Rodney of a coral reef alive with fish of every different kind of breed, shape, size, and color. There were mostly humans, who dressed colorfully enough, but the other species that moved through the terminal brought an energy and vitality that Rodney had not felt in a long time. Earth felt empty. They pushed people together into smaller communities to create a sense of density, but the reality was that Rodney’s own species was spread thin. Despite the chaos, Rodney could sense a flow to the station. Everyone was going somewhere. Most of the vehicles and the passengers manifested a sense of destination, is if their body language and movements communicated they somewhere to be. No one was loitering. At least, that was Rodney’s first impression until Tony asked,
“What’s that all about?” Tony asked pointing at a scene to their right with his elbow.
A female Govvu was screaming at the human station attendant. Two soldiers stood behind her a good two meters, but they were watching. Neither looked inclined to interfere. Rodney took a closer look at the Govvu. From his own experience Govvu and Humans were surprisingly similar both genetically and in temperament. Conspiracy theorists claimed both species had been seeded by some ancient star faring race millions of years ago, but the truth was that despite all of it’s incredible diversity, sentient bipedal land mammals got pushed into a few limited configurations. Color eye sight drove larger craniums which demanded more energy which demanded earlier births, later development, and most significantly shared attention. Shared attention lead to pointing, then language, then communication, and stories. Stories led to tribes, inter species competition for resources until one dominant variant won out and then boom, you got culture and civilization.
“Human’s and Govvu don’t get along terribly well,” Anil explained to Tony. This was true enough, Rodney thought, but he sensed something else going on here. A grift? The Govvu had perfectly flat white skin, like an egg shell and fire orange hair. Her skin markings, mostly natural had been enhanced by some tattoos, but her clothes were expensive. Rodney did not know much about Govvu culture, but he knew tattoos and expensive cloths did not go together. Rodney scanned the station attendent. She was holding a ticket scanner and apparently was not letting the woman board a train. Where was it going?
“That’s a Govvu?” Tony asked. “I thought they were all green.”
“Don’t say that too loud,” Rodney put his hand on Tony’s shoulder. “They don’t like to be talked about by humans.”
“Makes them feel like animals in a zoo,” Anil whispered. Rodney tried to read the train destination when, as if on cue, the Govvu pivoted thrust a finger at Rodney. They were closer than he thought.
“See! That’s what I’m talking about,” she screamed. “You’re all haters!” She spat the word.
Rodney put his hands up and tried to shrink back into the crowd. The last thing he wanted to was to make a scene. The line however seemed to push him back, closer to the girl. Like sand filling an hour glass more people flowed into the hall, creating a barrier between him and retreat. Rodney tried to keep walking, but the Govvu jumped in front of him, cutting him off. As if relieved to have someone else bear the brunt of the assault, the station attendant deftly ducked away, leaving Rodney alone with her. The two soldiers however took a step forward. A government official getting in an altercation with a xenotype was a political problem. Two civilians annoying each other? That was an easy matter to settle. Each one unslung her rifle and held it across her chest, finger on the trigger.
“I don’t want any trouble,” Rodney said.
“Trouble? Trouble? You are trouble. I just coming up here, to see what’s what, and you say to me only green Govvu are acceptable?”
“I didn’t say that,” Rodney countered feeling a rush of heat. He hated it when other people put words in his mouth.
“What? Am I not green enough for you?” She demanded. She had pale silver eyes and perfect teeth. The crowd grew denser and Rodney sensed two more guards coming up from behind, and another two from a passage to his left. “Is my whiteness a problem for you Hoomaan!” She shouted angrily.
Shit, Rodney thought. His gut told him things were about to get much worse. He knew what she was doing was trying to get attention. That’s all this was. Some kind of publicity stunt? A gag? No. Way too serious. She had another agenda, but he couldn’t fathom what it could be…
“What’s that mighty man!?” The palid female taunted him. The crowd leaned in to hear his answer. She was tall, but no where near as tall as Rodney. In comparison he towered over her. Here was this little white china doll of a Govvu screaming at this muscular mature man who was standing there with his hands up speachless.
A spark of instinct lit inside Rodney. That’s it, he thought. He knew what she wanted, but she wasn’t going to get it playing her game the way she did. She was good, but she didn’t really understand humans, or politics, and definitely not human politics. Rodney drew himself up to his full height then, speaking from his diaphragm he pushed dramatically increasing the intensity and power of his voice. Without shouting but with great force, enough to silence the crowd - and draw the attention of all six guards, he said, “Stop it. Stop it right now.” He wanted to sound like a father scolding a naughty child. He just hoped it worked.
The Govvu froze, just for a second, but she froze. She clearly was not expecting that reaction from him. The Govvu seemed to lose confidence for a moment. Rodney pushed ahead with his hunch. This was either going to work, or he was going to lose another night, maybe more, in jail. He stepped right up to her, but did not touch her and said, loud enough for his audience to hear, “If you can’t behave then you’re coming South with us. Play time is over.”
Rodney wasn’t sure what confusion looked like for a Govvu, but he suspected the look on her face was it. Instead of shouting, she said in a low voice, “What’d you say?”
“You’re coming with us,” Rodney folded his arms. “I turn my back for one second and you start pestering the staff, unacceptable.” Rodney hadn’t been able to read the destination of the train she was trying to grab a free ride on, but he had a hunch that it was headed south. So he went with it. Besides, it was pretty much a fifty-fifty chance to get the right direction.
The Govvu put her hands down to her sides. She leaned back and looked up at Rodney warily. “What you getting on about?”
Anil stepped forward and whispered, “Do you want a ride or not?” Rodney was relieved that Anil had picked up on the same thing he had. The girl was trying to grift a ride. Now they needed her to play along. would she get it? Rodney nodded toward the soldiers who had paused their advance, then back to the Govvu.
She stuck out her lip. “A’right. I’ll take your ride. But only because you owes it to me.”
“How do you figure?” Rodney asked, inwardly feeling relieved. He could not afford to give Sofia and the others a reason to detain him in the city.
“Because yoos a skin hater and this is how you make it up to me. I aint no stinking Verdy. I’m a right proper blanco. Where I came from calling someone green - well, them’s fighting words.”. Rodney thought she might actually be serious.
“Come,” Anil ushered them into motion. The crowd reluctantly parted. There was a palpable disappointment. Rodney could sense they were looking forward to some live entertainment, but now that it was disappating, so did their interest. Moving swiftly became easier. The guards lowered their weapons. “Let’s get moving again before they decide to do something rash.”
Rodney agreed. “As it is we’ve drawn too much attention to ourselves,” Anil said, more for the Govvu’s benefit than for anyone elses. “They don’t like trouble makers in this city.”. Rodney realized he was scolding her, but not too harshly. “Yoos not leaving without me,” The Govvu girl rushed up to stand between Rodney and Anil. Rodney did not touch her. He signaled with his left hand that she should fall in line behind Anil. She did with a a hop and a skip. Rodney shook his head. Unreal. Who the hell was she?