Lezah was lost deep in thought as she worked. Her face was covered with a mask and the low hum of the sprayer in her hand blocked out most of the background noise.
“Hey Lezah!?”
But not all of it.
Lezah clicked the paint sprayer in her hand off and turned towards her sister, pulling the mask off her face as she did so.
“What’s up, Zhay?” She asked her youngest sister.
“Aisell sent me to come find you. She says that Drugar and the rest of the tribe elders need to have a word over some problem they’re having.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Aezhay peeked over her eldest sister’s shoulder, which wasn’t hard seeing as she was taller than Lezah. “What are you doing anyway?”
Lezah grinned and stepped back to show off her handiwork. On the old worktable in their shed she’d spread out a drop cloth. On this drop cloth, she’d arranged a large amount of small beads, which she was in the process of spray-painting a metallic purple color.
“Isn’t it neat?” She said with a grin. “I’m making special beads that the tribe can use as currency.”
Aezhay blinked. “Aren’t we giving them real money?”
“Of course we are!” Lezah replied, rolling her eyes. “But they can’t very well use a datapad or credit chits like we do, now can they? I figure each bead will be worth one credit, and then if this works out we can start making other colors to represent other denominations to keep things simple.”
“But… they’re just beads.” Aezhay responded. “They aren’t worth anything.”
In reply Lezah dug a small credit chit out of her pocket and placed it on the table. “This is just a bit of plastic, Zhay.” She said. “It wouldn’t have any other value, but we’ve given it value. This is no different than what civilizations have been doing for centuries. Using a physical object to represent an abstract concept like wealth.”
“Huh.” Aezhay muttered. “I guess I never thought about it like that before.”
Lezah grinned. “You’ll see, this will be a great idea for the tribe. So much simpler than just trying to keep track of their money in a ledger or something.”
“Right.” Aezhay shrugged. “But, uh, anyway… Aisell and the tribe elders needed something… remember?”
“Oh right.” Lezah set the paint sprayer on the table next to her mask. “Let’s go see what the problem is then.”
*.*.*
In the farmhouse, on the kitchen table, an impromptu board meeting was taking place. Around the table sat the three Maris sisters: Lezah, Aisell and Aezhay. On the table’s surface, in seats that were designed for people their size, sat the Elders of the Tribe- Quendra the Huntress, Tosi the Gatherer, Mant the Defender and Drugar the Leader.
“I’m sorry to say it, Hair like F- I mean Lezah,” Tosi was saying. “But the numbers just don’t add up. We understand why you have brought in the second and third glowberry trees, but even if every member of our tribe all became Gatherers, there just aren’t enough of us to harvest that much fruit.”
Lezah sighed and shook her head. “Of course, you’re right. It was my fault for even ordering those plants without first consulting you about them. I guess I just got excited.”
“The third plant seems to be a bit younger than the other two; it’ll probably be a year before it starts producing…” Aisell added helpfully.
“But that still leaves the fruit of the second going to waste.” Tosi replied, shaking his head. “We won’t have enough people there either.”
There was a moment of silence as all present tried to think of some way of salvaging the situation.
“Perhaps if the defenders, the hunters and others each took turns assisting the gatherers in their task that would help.” Drugar chimed in. “After all, while those positions are vital to our community, they don’t necessarily have to function every day. We wouldn’t be able to harvest all the fruit, but at least we would be able to save some of it.”
“Wait…” Aisell suddenly sat up in her chair. “Elders, our main problem seems to be a shortage of labor, correct?”
“Correct.” Quendra nodded.
“I think I may have a solution for the problem, then. Leader, would you be willing to accompany me on a trip into the city? This might solve our dilemma, as I said, but I do not want to enact anything without your input… again. Especially as this would affect the Tribe far more than my sisters and myself.”
Drugar nodded. “Of course. I would ask that Quendra accompany us as well, as she has far more experience of the city than I do.”
He looked over at the young redheaded woman, who nodded.
“Good.” Aisell said with a smile. “We’ll leave in a few hours.”
*.*.*
After an uneventful flight into the city, Aisell parked Lezah’s beat up old farm shuttle by the roadside, just outside of a building she hadn’t visited in several months. Indeed, a building she never thought she’d enter again.
The Human Owner’s Society.
Aisell hesitated outside of the building. She looked down at her two human passengers, who were ensconced in her pocket.
“Maybe this isn’t a good idea…” Aisell muttered.
“Why not?” Quendra asked. “I think it sounds like a great idea.”
“But… this is a lot of people to be adding into your culture. People who weren’t raised with the same beliefs you were, the same traditions. What if they cause a problem? What if they can’t adapt?”
“Eyes-like-ice…” Drugar spoke to the young woman in a soothing voice. “This will not be the first time our people has welcomed another group into our fold. Indeed, this will likely not be even the biggest group with which we have done so. We will adapt to them, even as they adapt to us. Will we be the same afterwards? Likely not… but we will survive the process, same as we always have.”
Aisell let out a shaky breath, but nodded. “Okay. If you’re sure.”
After quickly checking that the two humans that were hiding in the pocket of her jacket weren’t visible, Aisell took a steadying breath and pushed the door open.
“Hello!” The woman behind the counter greeted her cheerfully. “Welcome to the Human Owners’ Society. How can I help you?”
Aisell bit her lip and glanced around, checking to make sure that Lyroo Prenn wasn’t around.
“Uh, well, I was looking into maybe uh…. Adopting… a few humans.” Aisell plastered a bright smile on her face and hoped she didn’t look as disturbed as she felt being in the Society building.
“Fantastic!” The young woman gushed, walking around the counter to meet Aisell. “Why don’t I take you in back, and you can take a look at the little cuties we have available. Maybe one of them will just melt your heart!”
“Great!” Aisell grinned, and then rolled her eyes when the woman’s back was turned. Nevertheless, she followed the young receptionist down a long hallway and through a series of doors until they reached a large room that held the ‘habitats’ of the humans.
It took all of Aisell’s willpower not to retch at the wall of cages and the demeaning conditions the humans were forced to endure.
“Wow…” Aisell muttered, looking around. “How… how many humans do you have?”
“Well…” The woman looked thoughtful. “I’m not quite sure of the exact number, as it changes every day of course, but at our last count we had around a hundred and eight humans living with us. They range in age from under a year to almost seven or eight years.”
“Really…?” Aisell muttered as she wandered around, looking at the cages. “That’s amazing.”
The receptionist smiled and nodded. “Well, unfortunately, I’m the only one here at the moment, so I have to keep an eye out front. Do you mind if I leave you here to take a look around?”
“Oh not at all!” Aisell smiled. Inwardly, she breathed a sigh of relief, this next part would have been a bit tricky with the HOS worker hanging over her shoulder.
“Great! I’ll be up front if you have any questions.”
“Okay.”
As soon as the young woman departed, Aisell quickly made her way over to the enclosure. She carefully took Drugar and Quendra out of her pocket and lowered them into the midst of the cage, where a curious group of humans was gathering.
“Okay, you two explain to them what’s going on.” Aisell whispered to the two humans. “I’ll keep a lookout for Little Miss Cheerful.”
Drugar nodded and signaled he understood. Aisell got up and walked back to the door, peeking through the small glass window at the top watching for the receptionist or any other HOS workers.
Faintly, she could hear Drugar and Quendra addressing the assembled group of humans. She could hear them explaining who they were, and how they lived on the Maris sisters’ farm, and what they did there. They talked of their lives before the alliance with the sisters, and their lives afterwards. They spoke of having freedom to live their lives on their own terms, and how they were paid fairly for their labor, and what that meant.
Then, Quendra explained why they had come to the HOS that day. She explained that they were there to offer the humans in the HOS shelter the choice to come live as they lived. They made sure to explain that any who decided to come would be expected to work their fair share, same as any other member of the tribe did, but by the same token, they would have an equal share in the fruit of that labor. Quendra told them that no one would dictate to them how they lived their lives, beyond the law that every tribe member agreed on. They would be free to marry, if they wish, and raise children, and see those children grow. That no one would ever take their children away to be sold as a pet.
Finally, after several minutes of talking, the room became silent. Aisell hazarded a glance into the habitat. She could see that every human gathered there, and indeed there appeared to be around a hundred of them, had a contemplative look on their face. Aisell wryly suspected that none of them thought they’d be asked to make a choice like that or indeed any choice, when they had awoken that morning.
“We do not come to force this on any of you.” Quendra spoke up after a moment of silence. “We leave the choice up to you. I wish we were able to give you all a chance to think it over, but unfortunately your choice must be made now, and it must be made quickly.”
A hush fell over the room again. Finally, after several seconds of absolute stillness, one of the humans- a young woman with long black hair and green eyes, stepped forward.
“I… I want to go with you.” She whispered, soft enough that Aisell had to strain to hear her.
Quendra nodded, and clapped a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Welcome to the tribe.”
Suddenly, another voice spoke up, and another human stepped forward. Then another, and another. The scene began to blur as Aisell’s eyes welled with tears that were quickly wiped away.
In the end, eighty-seven of the humans elected to come back to the farm with them. Eighty-seven humans, not all of whom would make good harvesters, but that hardly mattered. Aisell knew the tribe would find a place for them.
There was a soft knock that startled Aisell enough to make her jump. She’d stepped away from her lookout duties. Hastily, she swiped Drugar and Quendra from the enclosure and secreted them in her pocket, just as the young HOS woman poked her head in.
“Well?” She asked cheerfully. “Have you found a special little friend?”
“Uh… yeah.” Aisell smirked in wry amusement. “A couple of them actually…”
Excellent! I love the way you’re starting to wrap things up. 🙂
Glad to see an Epilogue chapter to show the growing pains between the Maris sisters and the tribe working together.
Both are inherently wholesome parties but both have big challenges in the bigger world out there.
Glad to see that this partnership would be able to free 80+ humans away from life as pets.
Cool chapter overall, if there’s more I’ll be happy 🙂
The chapter felt a bit odd, like it was a part in the middle of a sequel….
Not sure if the beads have any impact other than psychological. They (tribe) don’t have a developed economy to use them as a medium of exchange. Or perhaps the Titans do have an alternate form of exchange other than electronic. What I mean is what human society had up until 100 years ago – that is gold and silver, precious metals….. However from ToA it appears that they do. If the Titans do have this, then the Marises can give the tribe gold and silver for which the tribe can use to buy future things..
Also as for the labor issue the tribe/marises/anybody can come up with a (human size) automated berrie harvester that would cut down on the time and effort it would take…….of course that would mitigate the second half of the chapter 🙂
Is the automated harvester something they can do? If it hasn’t already been invented (and I don’t think it has), then it might require more engineering skill than they have.
As noted before, it’s economically unfeasible; it could be done in principle, but the costs are prohibitive.
I was thinking more along the lines of a orange tree shakers that growers in Florida use. It wouldn’t take a lot of engineering skill to produce, and be most likely human powered. They could even spread nets above the ground to catch the berries that were loosened. Barring that they could put knives on top of long sticks to cut down hard to reach berries..
That’s going to be one surprised HOS employee. I wonder if this mass adoption will make the news? I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the largest amount of humans adopted by a private person on one day.
Hm, depending on if anyone investigates this mass adoption (a good possibility after the events at the Rutger nightclub), the Marises could face accusations of human exploitation (and they’d not be entirely unreasonable). I hope the Marises thought of that.
Say, does this takes place after the Tol-Bot Grand Tribute? Because chapter 24 of Titan: Exile mentioned that there are ministry income requirements for multiple ownership (although they’re generally only enforced when adopting from HOS) and depending on the exact terms, those requirements could skyrocket with 87 adoptions. Unless Aisell had some good Tol-Bot winnings I don’t think she could pass any income requirements. Tol-Bot winnings would also explain where the credits for the glowberry/royalberry trees came from; those can’t be cheap.
I was thinking that perhaps it would have been wise to mention to the humans in the shelter that if they went to the Tribe and came to regret it, Aisell would respect their wish and bring them back to the shelter. That’d take a lot of the sting out of the “now or never” decision they found themselves confronted with.
Finally, the receptionist mentioned that the humans ranged in age from under a year to almost seven or eight years. Isn’t seven or eight years too young? Even here on Earth humans can become twelve and sometimes even thirteen Archavian years old, and that’s without the rejuvenating baths that are standard in the Empire. Actually, if the wiki entry for titans (the species) is correct, domesticated humans can live to over 20 Archavian years.
I assume they sold a harvest from the first bush in order to buy the others. Hard to say exactly, but it sounds like at least a bit of time has passed between when we last saw the group and now. As for the age of the humans at the HOS shelter, you’re right that domesticated humans can live to over a hundred earth years, but it’s plausable that 50 is the oldest the shelter has. The humans dying at the shelter from old age would not be an ideal situation.
Of course it wouldn’t be ideal for a human to stay in a shelter until they die of old age, but I find it hard to believe that that never happens. The older a pet gets, the less willing people are to adopt it. Here on Earth many a pet never gets adopted after being brought to a shelter, be it because of age, a handicap, or not being social enough (whether naturally or as a result of abuse). I see no reason for the Empire to be different in this regard. Therefore, I don’t find it plausible at all that the oldest human in this shelter is less than half the age a human in the Empire can reach, not in a shelter that has over 100 humans in it. Either that employee got the numbers wrong, we haven’t got all the facts yet, or I’m overlooking something.
It wouldn’t surprise me if members of the HOS took on ‘problem’ or hard to adopt humans after a certain age. Really the easiest explanation is this particular shelter didn’t have any humans that age that day. One shelter out of a multitude not having a particular age group for one day doesn’t really imply anything.
The number of humans in this shelter are too high for that to be plausible. If a shelter only had a dozen or so humans I could believe that it just didn’t have any older humans that day. But what are the odds that in a shelter with over 100 humans none of them are older than eight (out of a 20+ year lifespan) just by coincidence? I don’t know, but it strains my suspension of disbelief beyond the breaking point. I have a similar problem with HOS members adopting problem humans. I have no doubt that that happens, but unless the Empire is radically different from Earth then there far more problem pets than animal welfare workers can adopt themselves.
Now, it could be that if HOS deems that a human is unlikely to be adopted, that human is removed from the adoption centre and brought to a reservation or somesuch where they can live out the rest of their life, but no such thing was ever mentioned.
We don’t see every single one of the humans they adopt, and the fact that they asked them to work doesn’t mean they’re going to be stupid about it. As we’ve seen, the Tribe doesn’t expect all of its members to do hard physical labor. They expect them to work hard at tasks they are able to do.
As for the rules and regulations — well, let’s not forget that if Aisell runs into resistance, she can make a call to the head of the HOS….
I was never expecting the Tribe to be stupid about who does what. Especially because the new group is likely to include children. When I mentioned exploitation in my original post I was thinking that to an outsider it might look like the Marises did a mass adoption not because they were concerned about the welfare of the humans, but because by making those humans work for them the Marises will end up with a lot of credits.
As for making a call to the head of HOS, I don’t think that would be a good idea. The blackmail was supposed to be a one time thing. Suddenly requiring additional services (implying that the blackmailing might never end) would be extremely risky and could end up backfiring. Also, notice that at one point Aisell is specifically checking to make sure that Lyroo isn’t around. This implies that Aisell thinks that Lyroo would make trouble if she found out what Aisell was trying to do (blackmail or no blackmail). I agree; when it involves the protection of humans, Lyroo is capable of anything.
Good epilogue! Beads as money it’s logical idea like thesilentone said. It’s win-win solution! Good thing too as Aisell and co ‘freed’ humans from HOS shelter!
Kinda creepy getting another view of the Human facilities after all that’s happened…Reading that portion of the chapter made my stomach churn a little bit. Anyway, I’m glad we’re getting these Epilogues now! I think this story really needed a bit more closure than we got in the previous chapter.
Oh wow this is actually happening. Just recovering from a food coma and here’s a Nomad update of all things. Not sure about the economics though Lezah’s right in that currency only has the power we give it and so far, aside from a few slips, they definitely do seem to be working with the tribe.
It occurred to me how would they pay for all this but I forgot just how pricey royal berries are, if they can produce 87 humans would actually be a bargain.
Still hoping for some more personal interactions (though I believe OHH has at least one covered) and definitely needs more Thurfrit. Look forward for the next one.
If I recall from Exile, there’s no cost for adopting from the HoS. They specifically exist to give homeless humans a future.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong about the economics. Since the beads are just used with the tribe, it’s not like she’s making money as it were. Sure, she’s not trading chits for their work, and as such from a Titan point of view, she’s getting the glowberries for nothing. However, the tribe is getting something they can easily manage that they can later redeem for other goods and services (somewhat unclear what those might include, but it doesn’t really matter). Where it gets a little sketchy is with currency exchange, but since that isn’t happening in this case, I think it all works out.
Anyway, nice to have an update on a story. I was just thinking earlier today that’s it been quite some time, about 2 weeks, since we’ve last seen any story updated. I know these guys just write for here in their spare time, so I’m not complaining or anything. I’d rather have a well written and edited story over a rushed one any day.