Dirt Cheap by Firemiser
The visitors promised us the stars.
Nothing so frivolous as power and wealth,
but knowledge and advancement. All they
wanted was land in trade. A continent
barren of life we had no practical use for,
a desert of volcanic glass and no minerals
of note. And we would gain so much for
so little.
All nations claimed equal rights of
ownership to the territory to avoid
unnecessary squabbling but seeing the
size and numbers of the craft the
outsiders used to enter and leave orbit
with ease convinced the various leaders
to forgo their claims, for the greater good
of course. Holdouts were quickly
dismissed by vote.
Dates were set, transmissions were
relayed, and celebrations held. We
prepared to join Sirius and its story.
Floating barges covered in yellow
oscillating lights announced the
ceremonial first breaking of ground with
trumpets and fireworks while those
nearest the northern hemisphere
recorded the cost of our ascension. The
sky turned dark as a monolithic ship too
far away to see blotted the sun. And a
blinding beam of unimaginable power
carved away the surface of that useless
land, deeper, and deeper.
Our betters relayed persistent and
reassuring news announcements. The
beam was only a priming process to make
harvesting the wastes easier. The ash
clouds were a momentary annoyance.
The colder winter will be as natural as any
other volcanic eruption. The increasing
seismic activity were the tectonic plates
settling into new positions and would be a
temporary setback. Persistent excuses
after every disaster made the populace
either more numb or more angry. Drones
and satellites malfunctioned over the site
due to electromagnetic interference. We
were left figuratively and literally in the
dark as clouds blanketed our skies.
Natural disasters increased lockstep with
our industries producing the new
technologies we were promised that
could have protected us, at least
temporarily, from our now churning
turbulent planet. Unrest and riots grew
common when it was only the wealthy
who had priority to them. Stories of
powerful individuals, corporate owners,
Presidents and their retenue making trips
off world and not returning, rumour had
it with new luxury star yachts. Insult to
injury were the job postings for our own
people to work in the mines. Who had
little else to lose, homes and livelihood
gone in storms in the following years.
We were many, all looking for a roof and a
hot meal. And they delivered. Work and
travel included, how absurd. Their main
fleet had moved on and in needing to stay
on schedule they made the compromise
to hire on planet for the mundane
procedures and at the end of our
contracts they said they could always find
us new work if we wished. Even in system
as they had already claimed the worlds
we could only observe. They were open
and frank about their methods, and it was
hard to process the magnitude of the
projects. Nothing matched what we were
told by our own kind. And to this day I
don’t know if we truly agreed to all this.
After a long training session of hundreds
of pictographic warning signs and safety
gear we were shuttled off to the exclusion
zone. A short flight in low orbit was my
first trip into what most would call space.
On the observation deck we easily
spotted the sunk shadow in the center of
the continent hundreds of miles away. It
wasn't a mining site, it was the entrance.
A gateway so vast a mountain range
couldn't plug it. Massive ships coming and
going like an insect nest. The sight of it all,
the reality of it brought some to their
knees. And our keepers were oblivious as
to what ailed us. One came and stood
over one prone quietly weeping individual
remarking
“Yes… It is a beautiful operation isn't it?
grand engineering” they enthusiastically
continued “One surgical pinprick five
hundred miles across and plucked what
we needed from under ya. We would
have been finished and out of yer hair
already! But no, we had to call out our big
ships to settle up a claims dispute, shame.
You lanky boys will be fine though, follow
the signs and the machines won't rip you
to shreds! He bellowed a laugh.”
I interrupted with my only thought “Is it
going to die?”
The stout creature snapped out of his
musings “Oh sorry, you were saying?”
“Is it going to die… our planet?” I
repeated.
“Die? Ohh, you're a spiritual group is it?
Ah boy, I was only brought in recently. No,
no. The planet isn't alive. You see it..”
I cut them off. “I mean, can people live
here when you're done?”
“Oh about as long as we give other
planets this size” he starts to pull his
beard as he thinks “I'd say we gave you lot
the five generation guarantee. Would
have to check the paper wor..”
“An.. And after that!?” I stutter angrily
“Everyone still here just gets wiped out as
the planet falls in on itself?!”
“Well that's up to the client!” He spat
back defensively. “It's all there in the
contracts, signed, triplicate even. The
package without transport always
includes colony ship blueprints if I'm not
mistaken, the first should be almost done
by now if you all started on it when you
got it… right?”.
My eyes got wider in fury at the thought
of what our leadership did to us “Arks!?.”
He cut me off this time as I likely looked
as red as the lava fields.
“NOW, Not that it's your problem
anymore, right? You're with us now,
Pebble! Opportunity in every stone!” he
does a waving gesture over the view in
front of us distracting me. “And the stars
hide many stones!”
They gave me a stern pat on the arm and
a nod and wondered off quickly
mumbling about outsourcing before I
could spout any other obvious regrets
none could change now. Leaving me
looking out of the window.
Staring at my first stone.