Below the Surface

As usual, Canopa was up at first sunrise, checking herself in the mirror before grabbing her usual grain roll and running out the door to catch a train to the surface. She had on her teal uniform with its white belt, a supposedly calming combination of color for dealing with prisoners. Her thick, white hair was worn in a shaggy cut with bangs hanging over her dark brown eyes, the better to provide shade once she arrived on the surface where the prison was located. The inmates were not afforded the underground cooling effect where most Vuran inhabitants lived. People in the narrow rainforest around the equator were the only ones who could comfortably exist on the planet surface.

"It wasn't always like this," First Father Romoun told her when she was a child.

Second Father Lomoun, had chimed in. "Before we understood the energy from the air," he said. "Before that, we ruined the planet. Fools that we are."

She loved her fathers, though often she felt smothered by their care, concern, and sometimes disapproval. Her closest friend Ayin did not love her fathers; they had both left her mother when she was fifteen rotations. She had never gotten over it and refused to mate traditionally. Frequently, she said, "I will wed a single male or perhaps two, but they will not be related. Leftovers are fine with me."

Indeed, there were Leftovers, perhaps more than one knew. Her kind mated using one female with two twin males. As she had learned in school, for reproduction the sperm of identical males was needed with at least eight sperm, four from each male, entering the female egg to achieve success. Once inside, the egg chose which two of the sperm to accept and destroyed the remainder. It took two sperm to supply the needed number of chromosomes and they had to be from identical males. Naturally, more males than females were born. In some unfortunate cases, one male twin died or was killed. And then you had a Leftover.

"I wouldn't even want two males around," Ayin said. "Think how nice it would be to just live with one. Peaceful, don't you think?"

"How about none at all?" said Canopa. "That would be even more peaceful."

"I understand why you feel that way," said her friend, "considering your daily work. Just too many males. No one should have to deal with so many males."

What Ayen said was true. Canopa was a teacher of criminals, mostly all male. The Vuranians did not tolerate crime and the smallest offence could end in either prison or remodeling of personality. Convicted criminals had the choice of either. It was not a natural thing to want one's inner self processed and changed, though many had it done. But for some it was preferable to be an outcast than lose who one naturally was.

Canopa felt the dry heat as she emerged above ground and smelled the desert. She liked the smell but did not enjoy the heat or anything else about it. Entering Jadan Prison, she was issued the usual transparent, cooling cover to put on over her uniform and a beret-like hat that did the same for her head. She resembled a stylish little soldier in this getup and had mixed feelings about its effect upon her charges - hundreds of angry, disappointed, and frustrated males, the vast majority separated from their twins and having infrequent contact with friends or family.

"An especially and disturbingly hot morning," she remarked to the guard.

"Indeed," he said. "They are roiling and angry as usual. I had to use the prod several times already."

On Vuran, the authorities were not lenient with prisoners. However, they did not execute them, nor did they refuse them education. Whatever any of them wished to learn, the powers-that-be would do their best to provide the means, the goal being to successfully train them to re-enter society, though preferably not on Vuran. Sooner as a worker of some sort on one of the solar system's inhabitable moons.

This is where Canopa came in. Though she was small and sweet appearing, she had a giant and well-educated mind especially in areas of science, and this, combined with an ability to impart information in easily understood ways had earned her this prison job. It actually paid more credits than some positions in universities.

There were few prisons needed on Vuran since most people behaved themselves, just four on the whole planet, and the Prime Minister's pet side project was to get rid of them in general. She wanted to establish some kind of school combined with physical rehabilitation involving surgery, implants and drugs that would accomplish this end. Canopa knew all about this plan and heartily approved, though she also knew that some of the males were perhaps beyond rehabilitation.

"Your classroom is ready," said a different guard, Jolen, this one not a Vuran native but a Grida from a neighboring planet. Gridas, almost twice Canopa's height and made of solid muscle, were easygoing but sought after as guards since they could easily subdue any over exuberant Vuranan. "I put some flowers in there for you."

And they are so sweet, thought Canopa. "You make my day worthwhile," she told Jolen and he grimaced terrifyingly, but she knew it was his facial expression of pleasure.

The classroom was full. As always, she felt a stab of fear when she entered, but quickly slid her inner eyelid across her large eyes and back in place. Somehow this action calmed her a little. "Happy morning," she greeted the students, and they mumbled back. She sensed the chorus of emotion they exuded, some of them feeling pleasure to see her and others having degrees of negative feeling from jealousy at her freedom to wanting to hurt her because of her social standing. She thought again of changing professions but then entered into the day's work and forgot about it.

This particular day, this group was studying the decay of Vuran's climate into what it was now. Her most intimidating student, taller and larger than the others, stood up, the signal that he wanted to speak. "Nadra?" she said.

"You say that there were ancient stories about underground rivers that could be used to replenish the ecosystem? Take it back to what it was?"

"I didn't say that exactly," she said. "I said if such rivers exist, possibly they could help some of the desert return to a semi tropical zone or at least to where we can grow more diversified crops. But not to a temperate climate, no. It’s most likely all just an old tale."

"What if some people knew more about that?" Nadra said

Canopa looked at him more closely. “What do you mean?"

He looked cagey.

"I just mean to say that anything is possible. Though some people are not open to such ideas."

Her mind started racing. Obviously, he had something in mind. She felt a little wary. "Perhaps we can talk later," she said.

Oddly, he laughed, and it made her feel even more uncomfortable. "Whatever you like, pretty teacher," he said.

Oh, she did not like that but, as a citizen, she surely had an obligation to learn anything she could to improve the terribly damaged environment. If someone knew something, it was her duty to report it. Of course, there were a lot of weird ideas floating about, especially since the Grand Plague that had wiped out nearly a third of their kind. For instance, apparently many Vuranans believed that shapeshifting creatures from outside their star system were infiltrating their society and causing everyone to become stupid. She could have told those people that stupidity had always been rampant but as a government professional, she usually felt it safer to keep caustic opinions to herself.

After class, Canopa arranged with a guard to meet with Nadra in a private room. The guard fitted Nadra with a sedation collar that would, should he make any moves toward Canopa, instantly put him to sleep. He was seated across from her.

Though she was used to seeing him daily in her class, she felt uncomfortable being alone with him. He was so tall and muscular. His skin was a medium, rich brown and his white hair very thick and standing high on his head causing him to appear even taller. The problem were his eyes, which were long and narrower than usual, like horizontal slits. They had a knowing look that unnerved her. She had heard that his crime was sedition, that he was in for life unless he opted for personality redesign. Now she was curious; what exactly had he done? Thrown rocks at some government building because he had run out of beer? She couldn't help wondering if his twin had engaged in the same behavior but just not been caught.

"You're wondering what I did to be in here," he said, and her hearts sped up. Had he read her mind? Some people could - not many, but a few.

She didn't say anything.

"Better that you don't know," he said, his wide mouth twitching a little at one end. "You wouldn't want to be implicated." He paused. "Well, I should get to giving you that information. Before I do, I want assurance that what I tell you will not be traced back to me. I have to live inside this box of heat and horror and if certain people were to find out where the information originates, I wouldn't live another day."

Canopa had not thought of that. Could she really give him that assurance? She could refuse to reveal her source, but they would have a record of her meeting with him. The best she could do was to claim it had to do with his lessons. "They won't hear your name from me," she said.

He hesitated and then went on. "My twin Saldra on the outside knows about this. I have given him the details. Two of my fellow prisoners here are working on making an escape, but I will not give their names. It is imperative that they not learn about my involvement in this or my life will be short. But as a geological scientist, if I have information that could help heal our destroyed ecosystem, is it not my sacred duty to inform someone, even should it turn out to be useless? I cannot go to my end without having at least tried."

Canopa was shocked to her core. This tough and scary looking individual was a scientist? She should have read more about his background before having him in class. Surely, she was growing lax. Knowing this about him made him appear quite different to her.
"If you told your twin, why do you need to tell me? Can't he pass on whatever this information is?"

"He could," said Nadra, "but he won't. He knows it is his obligation, but he will not endanger me further nor his own current work. I cannot talk sense into him. I ask you though, please tell no one that Saldra knows anything, or he will also be in danger."

She was silent for some time while her mind ran around every corner. Finally, she said, "All right, tell me what you know." She leaned forward across the table.

His eyes darted sideways warily but then he began. "The two idiots who are digging their way out of here ran into something. Somehow when they built this prison, they did not see it? I am not sure how that would have happened.”

She interrupted. "This building was constructed of vidaline, made before they outlawed further use of that material. If you remember, the building kits were shipped to the site and then put together there. They did not need a foundation other than a thin poured slab. There was no deep digging."

"Before my time," Nadra said. "So, since no digging was done here, that explains why the builders never saw what the two idiots have found."

She waited and watched him, his expressive face, his warm dark eyes. Surely someone like this, nothing short of magnificent, should not be rotting away in this hellhole. But then, what did she really know? She had sneaked a look at her arm monitor and read that he had “spread misleading information during the most recent of the plagues.” But being that he was a scientist, she somehow doubted that whatever had been his message had been wrong.

"Before I was incarcerated, my brother and I discovered something exciting and tragic. Both things."

She waited some more.

"Irrefutable evidence that our current civilization was not the first on this world. Evidence that someone before us knew how to bring water up from deep inside the planet to nourish the land. Either it had gone as dry as we have it now and they treated it or possibly they had not needed such irrigation but simply discovered deep rivers were there should they ever be needed. But this former civilization did live on the surface. They were not forced to live underground as we do."

“And,” he added, “We are not sure if those people were like us or something different. But it makes no difference.”

She was not sure she believed him, but if he had discovered such an amazing thing, why would the authorities imprison him for it? "I don't understand your fear of sharing this with the authorities.”

He looked off into space and she couldn't help but admire his sharp jawline. Not all Vuran males had that attribute. "There are many things you and the average citizen do not know about this government. Things are not as you were taught to believe in school. Those in power are not, as you may believe, in league with the scientific establishment. They have their token scientists they parade in front of the masses, but these are minds that toe the line and promote what the ruling classes want. The general public is completely ignorant."

"What do the ruling classes want?" Canopa asked.

He snorted. "Credits and possessions, what do you think? They will sell their children for that. They will sell anyone for that."

She was only thirty-nine sun revolutions, still young and not yet jaded and having trouble believing his cynical revelations. "How would they get money from keeping such a water supply a secret?" she asked.

He smiled and looked up into space, apparently amused at her naivete. "There are conglomerates of Dracans eager to buy land on our planet. This is how they would eventually take over. They have already bought land at the poles. Do you understand? We Vuranans do not own our own poles! If it came to be public knowledge that there is a way to irrigate the land, Vuranans would regain their hope in life and replant the surface. They would not turn a bored ear to news of Dracans gulping up the surface of this planet. As it is, they just think these aliens are purchasing useless stuff."

Canopa thought about this. She was watching a tritorn insect fluttering at the high up window behind Nadra's head. It was trapped and would ever get out. She wanted to free it but the guard, watching through a window, would not let her move about the room and how would she hold the little being anyway without being stung? A tritorn was merciless when frightened.

The creature was a symbol of what Nadra and probably many other political prisoners faced. Suddenly she wondered if their conversation was being recorded. She leaned slightly forward and whispered, "So you want me to inform someone about this ancient underground system? I assume you believe it is still workable.”

He whispered back, "You remember the flower in the children's story? The one given to the boy in the ancient woods?"

She racked her brain, then finally whispered, "You mean the wosnia? The small white one?"

"Yes," he said.

She whispered, "Other name?"

“Senior Professor Haga Wosnia. Environmental department at the university here."

By here, she understood he meant the nearby underground city. "What possible power would this person have?"

"Her brothers are married to a Manotra."

Ah, the Manotras, one of which was top judge in the Court of the Land. “But how do you know this Manotra can be trusted?”

“Haga Wosnia and I know each other well and what she says is true.”

"I see," she said. And then, feeling a need to escape, she stood up and signaled the guard.

She felt as if her mind were being painfully stretched. It had never occurred to her that there might actually be solutions to the present condition of the ruined climate, and she had supported government programs to locate other planets and moons on which to restart parts of their civilization. It had been a given that the surface of the world they now occupied was beyond repair.

Was she really going to visit this person that Nadra told her to go see? Was it going to be difficult? All she knew was where the professor worked, and a lot of the people who worked there were higher than she in the social order and unlikely to welcome some total stranger coming up to them. For government sponsored scientists were held in high esteem, though from what Nadra said, Canopa now understood that state of affairs only held as long as those scientists followed the party line. Or some only pretended to toe this line?

Oddly, she felt somehow that she owed Nadra to see this fellow scientist. As soon as she left the prison, she returned underground and took the train to the university. Someone in the environmental department told her to look for Haga in the courtyard where she was in the habit of eating her evening meal. The old female was easy to find from the description given since she was bald and quite aged, probably around a hundred and sixty.

The underground parks were generally beautiful with authentic looking artificial lighting and cleverly disguised ceilings, creating the illusion of vast skies. Haga Wosnia was sitting on a long stone bench with her meal attractively spread out on a cloth beside her. She wore trousers and a colorful jacket of handwoven material, silken and beautiful. Canopa introduced herself.

"This feels strange, you understand," she told the scientist, “But I have a message to deliver from Nadra Kundar."

Canopa glanced around, suddenly concerned they would be overheard. But Haga Wosnia patted the bench on her other side. "Would you like some of this bolinta?" she asked.

Calopa declined, though it looked delicious. And then she passed on the information.

Haga remained silent for a long moment. Then she said, "Best for you to leave now. I don't know that anyone relevant has seen us. Thank you and I will take it from here."

Canopa got up, hearts pounding, and quickly left.

Days passed and she could not stop thinking about Nadra's perilous position. It was the first time she had seriously considered the fact that possibly a high percentage of the prisoners were there for political reasons. How sheltered her life had been.

That evening as she settled down in her small living pod planning on messaging Ayin for a nice long chat, she received visitors, and not necessarily welcome ones. "Hello, Mother and Fathers," she greeted them.

"You did not attend your brother's Deciding," Mother said. "That was very rude and in fact unheard of."

Well, it wasn't unheard of, Canopa wanted to say, but refrained. Having narrowed down their search for a mate to three women, her twin brothers’ Deciding Party was to introduce their potential choices to family and friends and to be open to input from said sources before they made their final choice. Assuming that their choice was still available. For at the same time, the three females would be having their own Decidings with three or four sets of twins for observing. It was a system that often ended in despair, but it was tradition.

"I think the system is barbaric," muttered Canopa.

She saw the skin of her mother flush darker and one of her fathers sputtered. "Our society runs on order and tradition," said Father One. "When people stop following customs such as this, society slowly breaks down and then potentially dies. When a society loses its soul, it can be taken over."

"Who are you thinking would be interested in taking us over?" Calopa snapped back.

She saw Father One hesitate, but Father Two said, "The Equator denizens possibly or even worse, the Dracans. Anyone who is perceptive knows that those disgusting aliens are sniffing around. And you know what happens when they worm their way onto a planet."

She didn’t. They had not talked about such things in school, nor had she read or seen any information on the subject.

Seeing her blank expression, Mother said, "They infiltrate, Canopa. They make secret friends with government high-ups and then make deals with them in which the rulers get kickbacks from whatever the Dracans plan do to with the land or business rights they purchase. When eventually, enough of the natives have made deals and large tracts of land are in the hands of the invaders, they quietly take over. Soon any business you deal with of any size or power is owned and run by Dracans and they legally become citizens of Vuran and then it’s only a matter of time before they are in government and running it. A quiet takeover that spans some decades.”

"On Lityan, a planet about the same size as our own in the Mura system,” said Father Two, “they methodically eliminated the natives until the only ones remaining were obedient slaves.”

Canopa was silent while registering this frightening information. Her digestive tract seemed to be gurgling from top to bottom. What had Nadra said, about Dracans already owning the poles?

“Parents,” she said, “I apologize about missing Liamon’s and Liamok’s Deciding. I could give the excuse that I was busy, but no excuse would be enough. I will try not to let something like that happen again.” Did she mean what she was saying and why was she so tired of conventions? They never ended. Frankly, she thought Decidings were absurd. Fifty percent of the time, they ended in nothing.

Her parents all mumbled.

"So, did Liamon’s and Liamok’s choice choose them back?"

Hesitation. “Well, not yet,” Father Two said. “Apparently, their main first choice is considering her own second choice over her former first.”

Canopa had the sense not to smirk. All she wanted was to be alone to think over her next move, that of going to see Nadra’s brother. She wanted a warm glass of tea and the freedom to respond to incoming messages in peace and talk to her friend. Please, all leave, she desperately transmitted mentally, hoping they would pick up on it but they stayed until she was desperate for sleep.

The next day, the news announced that a recreational area in the city was sold. The announcers were cagey about who the buyers were, but instinctively, Canopa knew. It was happening and she understood that the Dracans would do whatever they could to keep any knowledge of the underground water sources (if they had any) from the Vuranan public until they had totally infiltrated and taken over. She felt an almost violent sense of emergency.

It was not her day to work, so she made herself presentable, possibly more than presentable, wearing her favorite blue uniform but decorating herself with a delicate head band sporting a matching blue jewel. Why not? And then she went to meet Nadra’s brother.

Salda Kundar was not, as she discovered in a hyperspace search, a geologist like his twin, but a medical professional specializing in the gastrointestinal system. Her receiver screen showed a moving picture of him, of course resembling his brother but much more polished since, obviously, he was not incarcerated and had access to luxurious grooming. Quite handsome he was, though for some reason, not as appealing as Nadra. She would have to make a medical appointment in order to see him and tried to set that up. That would be best since a patient/doctor exchange was confidential. However, when she transmitted, the office said to come right in, that theirs was an open system.

Two medicos in learning were in the room with Salda when she entered, already in her examination robe. The scanner was turned on and humming. She had to get rid of the students.

“I want to be alone with the doctor,” she said firmly.

He tried to dissuade her. “They need to learn,” he said. He was so like Nadra but at the same time different.

“Alone,” she insisted and reluctantly, the students left.

“I am not here for consulting,” she said. “Can we be heard?”

He assured her that they could not, and she told him the story.

“I already know,” he said when she was finished.

His expression was conflicted, and she could easily read it. “I know that whatever you do could ruin your life,” she said. “But you know that others will help you. Haga Wosnia, for instance.”

He gave her a long searching look. “And what about you?” he finally said.

Everything seemed to flash before her eyes, how in a moment her easy life could dissolve into ruin. Her parents and brothers abandoning her in embarrassment, her profession in shatters, probably joining Nadra in the hot misery of prison and suffering an early death from stress, bad diet and possibly violence.

“It has to be done,” she said, “and if we don’t try to save this world, who will?”

He looked at her more closely and she at him and something seemed to pass between them. “We are not alone; there are others,” he said. “I tell you now. I have not told my brother as I don’t want to get his hopes up.”

“I think he needs to get his hopes up,” she said. “Something to live for, do you see? I don’t know how long he can last in that heat.”

They met in her lodgings that evening. Nine altogether – Haga Wosnia and her brothers Gea and Ven, and their Manotra wife the High Court, another Manotra with her and two geologists with whom Nadra had once worked.

"We are expanding," said Ven and his wife agreed. “There are more than a hundred of us,” she said. “And all are training in Abidan.”

Canopa was surprised. Abidan was the ancient art of assassination. Once you crossed into it, you could not cross back. It demanded a blood oath. Would they expect her to do this? Did she want to do this? It felt to her as if she was on a predestined path.

A full rotation of Vuran later:

Seventeen assassinations and the destruction of the living spaces of every Dracan on Vuran had taken place. The Dracans did not dare to physically attack the planet in return as such a thing would give away their true intentions to Vuran and every other planet in known space. Everyone knew that if a person visited another world and that world did not have an open pact with their world, visitors were on their own; they took their chances. There was no obligation to defend or protect them unless a pact existed, which of course no one planning to infiltrate and take over another world would instigate.

Canopa met privately with Haga Wosnia again in the park, again while she ate her evening meal. The old female appeared to have youthened since Canopa had seen her last. Her dark eyes glowed with pleasure. “You are looking really…I don’t know…healthy, Haga,"
Canopa remarked.

Haga Wosnia smiled and popped a roja into her mouth which she chewed with relish. "It is good to be alive when one is fighting evil,” she said. “We are strong now and will not stop until this current government is overthrown. And in a short while, there are those who will let loose the underground waters."

"They will?” said Canopa. "Do I know who will do that?”

"It is best that you do not know too much,” said the old scientist. “Best that you continue to work in the prison as usual and that you appear perfectly normal. Continue, of course, your practice in the ways of Abidan. You never know when you will need the skills.”

Canopa continued on with her teaching at the prison and every day, she and Nadra exchanged glances that strengthened their bond. When she could, she talked to him under her breath in class. When and if he ever got out of there, she knew he was her mate in spirit, whether his brother came with that or not, she did not care. The world was changing in more ways than one and she was part of it.

THE END

Bio:Margaret Karmazin’s credits include stories published in literary and SF magazines, including Rosebud, Chrysalis Reader, North Atlantic Review, Mobius, Confrontation, Pennsylvania Review, The Speculative Edge, Aphelion, AnotherRealm and The Rabbit Hole. Her stories in The MacGuffin, Eureka Literary Magazine, Licking River Review and Mobius were nominated for Pushcart awards. She has stories included in several anthologies, published a YA novel, REPLACING FIONA, a children’s book, FLICK-FLICK & DREAMER and a collection of short stories, RISK.

E-mail: Margaret Karmazin

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