“Except for that core, the entire planet is solid and not particularly hot. Metals are much better conductors of heat than the rocky covering that Earth-like planets have. All of the original heat has long since dissipated on New Kashubia, and the heat of decay from the more radioactive layers finds its way to the surface easily.
“Kasia, my throat is getting dry.”
THERE IS A WATER TAP NOW EXTENDING JUST TO THE LEFT OF YOUR MOUTH.
“It extended into my mouth,” I said with a rubber water tap in my mouth. “Look, I’m not very thrilled about drinking my own reprocessed urine.”
THIS IS NOT REPROCESSED ANYTHING, SINCE YOU HAVE YET TO URINATE. IT IS SIMPLY DISTILLED WATER FROM MY INTERNAL STORES.
“Right. It tastes warm and flat.”
TRY IT AGAIN.
“Hmm. Much better. What did you do?”
I APPROXIMATED THE CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF SPRING WATER AND DROPPED THE TEMPERATURE TO FIVE DEGREES CENTIGRADE.
“You can do that? Thank you.”
ALL PART OF THE SERVICE. NOW, YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT THE FOUNDING OF NEW KASHUBIA.
“Yes, ma’am. Over the decades, the Japanese robots dug their way straight to the center of the planet to tap the mercury, and tunnels went off this central shaft at those levels that contained metals most in demand.
“You know that gold is a very useful metal. Even though they don’t use it for money anymore, it is attractive, malleable, noncorroding and rare, which makes it expensive enough to be transported profitably. Naturally, the gold layer on New Kashubia is among the most exploited and had the most extensive system of tunnels. The gold layer was fairly deep, so that the gravity was low there and people burned less food moving about. That and the fact that gold is among the least poisonous of metals meant that these tunnels were the first to be sealed off for housing the eleven million Kashubians who were arriving as fast as there was the least bit of room for them.
“You see, when the money was being distributed, everybody who was even a little bit Kashubian was eager to claim to be one of us, and benefits were handed out in proportion to how Kashubian you were. Even a one-sixteenth share was well worth cashing the check on. Then when the Civil Dragoons came rounding people up for export, they used our own disbursement lists as a guide, and never mind that only one of your great-great-grandparents was Kashubian. They were worried about world overpopulation, not about justice.
“Many people came to regret their grandparents’ greed. I mean, some of the people they sent to New Kashubia looked Chinese, and a few of us were even black, if you can believe an Afro-Kashubian. Me, I always was one hundred percent Kashubian, so I never had much choice one way or another.
“I had managed to get a few student deferments, so that I could complete my education before I was forced to emigrate, but they yanked me out of school just before I graduated, right in the middle of final exams. Even so, I was on almost the last immigrant canister to go to New Kashubia.
“I guess a degree wouldn’t have made much of a difference here, anyway.
“They had me fly from my school in England to Warszawa International, but then I had to get on the same ancient, decrepit railroad train that everybody else used when they were being deported. They didn’t want us in a group at the airport to remind the nice, decent people of what they were doing to us.
“We were transported from a station in what had been Belgrade, Yugoslavia, before the Yugoslavs had left twenty years before, to the vast relief of everyone around, the Wealthy Nations Group included. For variously historically significant reasons, those people had been responsible for causing, or at least starting, at least three major wars and who knows how many small ones, including World War I, the Bosnian Conflict, and the Serbian Reunification. Yugoslavia, of course, had so many ethnic minorities that it actually didn’t have any group in the majority, so they just gave the whole nation a planet of their own.
“Now, of course, that whole area of Europe is a resort area used by the citizens of the Wealthy Nations Group, so we disreputable Kashubians were shuttled directly from our railroad cars to the transport station in closed busses, before we had a chance to disturb nice, decent people and cause their wonderful property values to drop.
“I watched when our canister came in, and over three thousand tons of gold were pulled out of it with sturdy lift trucks, to be shipped to the Wealthy Nations. Then collapsible bunks were folded out and thin, new, plastic covered mattresses were put on them. We soon found out the reason for the plastic covers.
“They’d told us that absolutely no luggage or personal effects were allowed, but some people still didn’t believe them.
“Their property was simply trashed by the guards. We had nothing but the clothes on our backs, and we’d be losing even those before it was through. We colonists were loaded forty at a time into tiny ships that consisted of nothing but a metal canister with a minimal life-support system and tiny bunks that had been designed by a very short Japanese engineer.
“These ships, like most of those used throughout human space, had been built in an automatic factory right here on New Kashubia, but we unappreciative occupants were not gratified. The ships had no propulsion system, no guidance system, no pilots, and no windows.
“As the door was being sealed shut from the outside, one of the guards handed my uncle a manual written in Japanese. They told him to read it to the group to let them know what was happening. Not that my uncle or any of the rest of us could read Japanese. I tell you that it was not an auspicious beginning!
“The Hassan-Smith transporters work on the principle of shunting matter through several alternate dimensions. This made our trip much shorter, but did not reduce it to zero. The trip took us colonists nineteen hours, and the consensus was that it was probably better that we couldn’t look out of the windows that weren’t there. Things were bad enough as it was. Once we left Earth, there was no gravity and only one Porta-Potty.
“From Belgrade we were transmitted to the Solar Factory Station inside the orbit of Mercury, where transmitter power was cheap. After only a few minutes in free fall, just long enough for Mrs. Mostnikow to vomit, we were sent to the station that orbited New Kashubia’s neutron star. Of course, this meant almost a day without gravity, so everybody had a chance to catch up with Mrs. Mostnikow, which we did. Also, nobody got the hang of using the Porta-Potty in free fall, so vomit wasn’t the only lovely semisolid floating around.
“The station at New Kashubia’s star was in a synchronous orbit, which kept it out of the searchlight beam of deadly radiation, and for a few minutes we had some gravity. Only it was tidal gravity that pulled us and our messes to both ends of the canister, and a few of the people at each bottom nearly drowned. Even without that, I wouldn’t have wanted to stay there. A twenty-two second orbit is scary!
“From there, our unfortunate group was transmitted down to below the surface of the planet and we colonists, coated with every possible noxious human effluent, were decanted.
THAT WILL BE SUFFICIENT FOR THE TIME BEING. I WILL REQUIRE SEVERAL HOURS TO CORRELATE MY DATA, AND YOU ARE SCHEDULED FOR A SLEEP PERIOD ANYWAY. GOOD NIGHT MICKOLAI.
“I’m not tired yet.”
YES YOU ARE. YOU ARE GETTING VERY SLEEPY. VERY, VERY SLEEPY. . . .
And then I fell asleep.
CHAPTER FOUR
CONCERNING CONDITIONS ON NEW KASHUBIA
“Good morning, Mickolai,” said a pleasant feminine voice.
“Who are you?” I said, groggy without my morning caffeine pill.
“I’m Kasia, of course. You won’t be talking to anybody else until the training course is over.”
“You sound different. Better.” I was feeling much better today, not as closed in and confined as I had been yesterday. I guess a man can get used to anything, after a while.
“Thank you. It’s part of the calibration procedure, and things will get much, much better as time goes on, and I really get the feel of your spinal column.”
“Right. So just how long is this training period, anyway?” I asked.
“That depends on you, Mickolai. It’s over when you complete the course. The record for basic training is three months, but most people take five or so.”
“What’s the worst record? I just might beat that.”
“Oh, I hope not. Some people never do pass, you know. They have to be sent back.”
“What happens to them then?”
“That depends. If they were really volunteers, they simply go back to their old civilian jobs. Those who were sent here by the courts go to their alternate punishment.”