27 - Badblood

“I’m not going to cheat you out of your labor and possessions,” Maya stated. “Do you know the value of this stone?”

Maya lifted a mana stone from the pile that sat before her. It was an extraordinary amount of stones. From what she could tell, the gobbolds… no the Children or Tarvana (if untranslated), consumed a stone a day to keep starvation at bay. Along with what they could find, either minerals consumed from the dirt itself or from old bio-trash they found, they survived the five week death march from the Motherland to this place.

There had been three hundred of them when they were cast out; their original leader had been consumed as an act of contrition, but the Mother still refused their return. They had been Abandoned, sent out into the wastelands to slowly starve to death.

They were natural burrowers, most with some occupational path related to mining, digging, burrowing, or earth shaping, which was a thing. They could move the ground around with little effort, their mana stores being replenished by the stones themselves and not from ambient mana.

It was how the burrowing rogue AI also existed, the machine was constantly digging and consuming mana stones, occasionally having to surface to suck in more ambient mana to top itself off.

Whitestar, the elderly Tarvana, explained that the dirt was holy, being brought to this world from the World Beyond. It carried mana within it and as it showered down upon the land it formed layers. After eons the layers hardened and the mana trapped within the dirt would turn into mana stones, which the Mother would consume to feed herself and her Children.

It was their job to mine the stones and bring the surplus to Mother, those that brought the most were Favored and their tribes would grow in power and size.

“Food itself has the greatest value,” the old woman said.

“Bell, tell them. How much does a ration bar cost? How much would this mana stone cost in the multiverse at large?”

“A ration bar would cost about ten credits a piece,” Bell said. “This mana stone, from its quality and rarity would cost about twenty credits a gram. Natural mana stones aren’t that sought after. There are some who use it for jewelry and for some industrial purposes.”

“We do not trade much,” another voice spoke up. It was a short male with a flat face and spiky hair. He wore a leather vest and a kilt; there was only one way leather could be made in this world. Maya held back her disgust and horror, and smiled. “But that does not mean we will be cheated and scammed.”

“I’m not looking to cheat you,” Maya said.

“Merchant. Trader. There are not many of your kind among the Children, but those that exist are driven solely to make credits and cheat honest hard working Children of what they have.” The man continued.

“You are?”

“He is meaningless,” the old woman said. The man immediately shut up. “I am the leader here. I make the decisions and when I speak, they follow.”

“Cool,” Maya said.

“We cannot give you all the mana stones we have mined,” the old woman said. “It is the only way we can increase our mana stores, for if we try to absorb the ambient mana on the surface, the rogue AIs make short work of us.”

“I understand, but you have a surplus, no?” Maya asked.

“That is tribute to the Mother!” the kilt wearing man screeched.

“For pricing, we’ll go with the standard for the ration bars,” Maya said, summoning a bar. The kilt wearing man looked at it hungrily. “Ten credits for the bar and we’ll say twenty credits for a gram of mana stone. With your numbers, you’ll need about fifty three bars a day, that would mean twenty seven grams of mana stones a day.”

Whitestar turned and summoned another man toward her. Maya recognized it as the pug faced SIL she had first fought in the tunnel. He bowed to Maya and then sat down before Whitestar.

“How many grams of mana stone can you and your miners obtain a day?” she asked him.

“Five kilograms a day, leader,” he said immediately.

“We require about three grams of mana stones a day to keep our mana stores up,” Whitestar said. “I think we can purchase what you are selling.”

Maya smiled. “Awesome. I can give you about a hundred bars right now. That should last you two days, in two standard days we will return with another load of ration bars.”

“Agreed,” the woman said. There was a chitter of excitement from the crowd that was sitting in the gallery and along the walls of the chamber. The entire tribe was there and Maya saw with some sadness that there were no children among them. The first to die, the first to be eaten. It was terrible, but she also realized it had been done because they were starving and cannibalism in this world wasn’t frowned upon. Hell, even Bell had nearly succumb to eating his companions that had died when he arrived.

“We are finished,” the old woman said.

“Hold on a minute,” Maya said, looking around. “What is this place? A ship? A building?”

The old woman shrugged. “It was here when we arrived a month ago,” she said. “We were lucky to have it here, but it is old.”

“What about the power, I see lights on. Do you have a mana core or batteries?”

The woman snapped her fingers and another figure rushed up. This was a lanky woman with large violet eyes and a wide mouth full of sharp teeth. Maya noted that not many of the gathered people looked similar, was it just the way they were born or was it from the other survivors that had been ‘Ascended’ and added to their gene pool.

“This is Ironwatcher. She is our [Fixer].”

“Fixer?” Maya shot Bell the question over their private comm link.

“A low grade version of [Mechanic], I think it’s obtained when there isn’t a large grasp on technology and what it does.” Bell said over their comm. “That would mean they’re not real system tech users and don’t have a full grasp on what they’re doing.”

“Does this place have a mana core?” Maya asked.

“There is a glowy thing that burns,” the Fixer said. “It sears the skin and burns the eyes, it causes the mana sickness and mutation.” She spoke quickly and fidgeted about.

“You work on that core?” Maya asked, a bit shocked. She remembered her own experience with the mana core in the Hangy, it had been technically shutdown at the time, but it had still produced enough raw generic mana that it had done some cellular damage to her.

“I try to keep the lights on,” the woman said. “Is hard. I don’t know much. My father, Ironeye, he was a real [Fixer] level twenty.”

“What are you?”

“Level eight.”

Maya turned to Whitestar. “Do you want to purchase a set of engineering knowledge cubes?” she asked.

***

“This is wrong!” the kilt wearing man cried out, before jumping up and glaring at Maya. “We cannot just abandon everything that we are!”

Maya had learned his name was Brokenstone and he was, to put politely, an asshole. Maya glared at the man and felt like chasing him off from the proceedings. Every suggestion, every topic was met with cries of how they’re going against the teachings of Mother and how they’ll never be allowed back.

Two hours had passed since Maya and Whitestar began negotiations. The backbone of their deal was food. Whitestar needed food and they had mana stones to trade, but Maya sensed profit, literally. Her Profitsense was tingling.

“You gave up on the food pretty easily,” Bell commented. “Why are you fighting so hard about the rest of this stuff?”

“The ration bars brings them in and shows them we’re willing to trade, but when they’ve got their snouts in the trap, we wringe them for all they’ve got. Credits, that is, or mana stones,” Maya responded.

“But the mana stones are pretty worthless, also.” Bell said. “Sure they look pretty and have value as decorations, but these people don’t have much beyond that.”

“Black goo, pal,” Maya said. “We secure this line of mana stones and we’ll be set mass producing black goo. Zono sells his industrial mana stones for nearly fifty credits a gram, they’re solid, but the black goo can take anything. One kilogram of mana stones will make ten thousand square meters of netting. Fifty thousand credits or twenty thousand credits? It’s even less than that if we only sell ration bars to them. Each ration bar requires two kilos of biomass to produce, adding mana and time and effort Nan takes, it’s about two and a quarter credits to make a ration bar.

“A kilo of mana stones is twenty thousand credits, that’s two thousand ration bars, or four thousand five hundred credits spent. That will last them a little over thirty seven days, if they keep the fifty three population. But this also goes beyond that.”

“Like what?” Bell asked.

“They’re SIL,” Maya said. “They can level, they can gain occupations, and they can channel mana. They also are a potential source of labor.”

“Labor?” Bell glanced at the Tarvana. They sat huddled together, dishing out a ration bar soup among themselves. Maya didn’t know where they got water, but they seemed to have it well in hand.

“There are only eight of us, nine if you count Zono,” Maya said. “We can’t do everything. We just don’t have the man power to do everything we need to do. Exploring the ship, building defenses, salvaging, getting things prepared for Earth, helping the astronauts, trading with Peg. There is so much that needs to be done and there is just not enough hours in the standard day to do it all.”

Bell nodded. “I see.”

“If we can setup good relations with these SIL, maybe they’ll be willing to be hired on to help us at the Hangy,” Maya said. “Pay them a living wage and show them the joys of high tech living.”

“Ah, that’s why you’re pushing to sell useless wares upon them.”

“Not useless,” Maya said. “Labor reducing, quality of life items.”

“How is a shiny robe going to do that?” Bell asked.

“Because, Whitestar is the boss lady here and she needs to look the part. They’re SIL and one thing I’ve learned after all this time, those in charge love looking like they’re in charge.”

Bell snorted.

“They have credits, they’ve been scavenging every bit of previous living thing in this place, that means a lot of SIL who died crossing over. I gained whatever credits those SIL had on them when I claimed the bodies back in the pub,” Maya said. “So they have those credits and they don’t really use them. This is a semi-bartering, exchanging favors with your neighbors kind of society. They don’t really do trading, as their entire focus seems to be on mining mana stones and then gaining Mother flesh in return. It’s a brutal subsistent kind of living where cannibalism is just a way of life. Give them pretty stuff and less work, then they’ll find out that there’s more to life than just digging tunnels and eating your friends.”

“You intend to change their entire way of life by selling them stuff?” Bell chuckled.

“Ugh. My country’s history is filled with people trying to sell stuff to less technologically advanced people and ‘make’ them civilized,” Maya said. “I’m not going to rip them off and cheat them, I’m not going to conqueror them and exploit them, nor am I going to destroy who they are as a people. They are a people, they were here before us and they made this plane their home, through sacrifice and horrors we cannot imagine. We treat them right, but we also try to maximize the profit we can from them.”

“Very well,” Bell replied as the Tarvana broke up from their meal and Whitestar returned to her negotiating spot.

***

“This is a good deal,” Whitestar declared, while Brokenstone glowered behind her.

“The Sullivan Survival Society is glad that you think so,” Maya said, putting on a formal air. “We shall take payment for the bars that we have given you now, but the rest will be due upon delivery.”

“Agreed.”

“We shall meet in the same spot that we fought the rogue AI, is that acceptable?”

“Yes.”

1,000 ration bars - 10,000 credits

1,000 meters of Duracolth - 5,000 credits

1 set of Engineering Knowledge Cubes - 25,000 credits

1 set of mechanic tools - 2,000 credits

4 canister turrets - 30,000 credits

40 mana pulse grenades - 10,000 credits

10 helix satchel charges - 5,000 credits

10 Sullivan Special - Big Iron Shooter Mk. II - 2,000 credits

4 healing potions - low-grade - 1,000 credits

1 Garsolo silk robe - mid-grade - 100 credits

Compared to the deal that she had struck with Pegarios and his people, Whitestar’s order was on the low side. Maya chalked it up to the Tarvana’s general lack of knowing what they really wanted. She could understand it, their entire lives had been hiding from danger and trying to survive day to day without starving or being eaten.

Maya made a note to create a catalog like Zono had, most of the discussion had been her trying to explain the benefits of various technologies and items they might need. Whitestar saw some value in them, but she was more interested in food and protection. Therefore Maya didn’t push her too hard on the purchasing of other goods. If she created a catalog then she might be able to entice more people to buy personal items.

Maya made a note and filed it away.

“The last thing,” Maya said, taking a breath. She oddly felt nervous about what she was going to bring up, but pushed forward. “We need access to your DNA.”

“DNA?” the old woman asked. “Why?”

“It’s to better tailor the ration bars to your bodily requirements, along with making potential medicines that you might need,” Maya said.

The old woman thought for a moment and then snapped her fingers. A young man jumped up and ran off.

“Ugh, you think they’re gonna give us a bloody chunk of one of their people?” Maya asked Bell through the comm.

“What are Nan’s requirements?” Bell asked.

“Pretty much as long as there’s viable DNA, she can extrapolate from there.”

A few minutes later the young man returned, half carrying and half dragging another Tarvana. Maya frowned, wondering if they had raided their larder to give them a sample. She felt like shuddering, but held it at bay as the man dropped the Tarvana to the ground before them.

“Take,” Whitestar said.

“Uh…”

The figure lying on the ground shuddered and a black eye looked at Maya. The Tarvana was one of the flat faced ones, the eyes large black orbs, and the body a frail and near skeletal thing.

“You have given us a chance at survival, Maya Sullivan. You have given us the chance at a future, therefore we shall gift you this creature. Use it to make your potions, medicines, and ration bars. We shall be grateful for you to remove it from our lair.”

“Excuse me?” Maya asked. She looked down at the frail creature before her.

Badblood - level 2

“She is sick,” Whitestar said. “Badblood was born… wrong. She is always sick, she is the weakest of us, and she has put the tribe into danger more times than we can count. It is only because her own mother was a great miner that she was allowed to live. But now her mother is dead and she is of no use to us. Take her and use her to make your creations, we shall look upon this act favorably. It is that or we consume her and no one really wants to eat the flesh of the ill.”

Maya choked back the rage that was building inside of her. Bell set a hand upon her shoulder and she took a slow breath. She felt a surge of disgust at the treatment of the woman and the growing respect for Whitestar plummeting into an abyss.

“We accept this gift,” Maya said with a strained voice. “We shall use her as we can.”

“Then we are at agreement. We shall pay you in the mana stones you seek or in credits if you wish.”

“Mana stones are fine,” Maya said.

“In two days we shall have four and a half kilos of mana stones readied for you, in exchange for all the items we had agreed upon.”

“Of course,” Maya said stiffly.

“Then let us return you to the surface and to the vehicle you arrived in.” Whitestar rose to her feet and the rest of the tribe followed suit.

Bell gingerly picked up Badblood, cradling her gently as they marched from the room. His expression was blank, but she knew he was seething with the same rage she felt. They exited the metal corridors of the structure and entered a large rock chamber.

A Tarvana stepped forward and raised their hands. The ground rumbled, a deep bass note filled the air and suddenly Maya felt herself being propelled upward. She widened her stance, bracing herself as a three meter diameter circle of the rocky ground rose up with them upon it. She saw the ceiling of the cave melt away and the group began ascending at a decent pace.

“Earthshaper is the best,” Whitestar commented as Maya watched the Tarvana concentrating on moving the ground around them. “He is the highest leveled [Earth Mover].”

“Cool.”

They arrived to the surface shortly, Maya checked her computer and saw that they had been about a hundred feet underground. She looked up at the rainbow skies with a sense of relief. Ahead of them stood the Xefer rover, slightly battered from the rogue AI, but untouched.

“We shall meet here in two standard days,” Maya said to Whitestar.

“Until then, Maya Sullivan. Travel safely.” The old woman bowed and a moment later she and the other Tarvana disappeared into the ground.

“Fuck.” Maya summed up all of her feelings. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” She paused and looked at Bell. “How is she?”

“Very ill,” Bell said. “She is starving and the healing potion isn’t working very well. It uses some of the body’s mana to assist in its workings, but this Badblood has nothing.”

“Right. Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Maya said and they rushed to the buggy.

***

“Another few hours and she would be dead,” Nan said as she stood over the pod that they had placed Badblood within. In the light of the Hab’s medical room, she looked even more frail and younger than Maya realized. Maya gripped a railing as she watched the slow movements of breathing from the girl.

“You keep bringing the strangest SIL to me,” Nan said. “Especially in a plane of existence where there should be an extremely low amount of SIL.”

“Gotta keep you on your toes.”

“If I had toes.”

“She’ll be fine?” Maya asked.

“There are still a lot of tests to run, but she will remain living for the time being. “

Maya let out a long breath and sighed. “What a bunch of fuckers,” she said. Then sighed again. “Well, I guess I have to make the stuff we promised for those assholes.”

“She will be fine in my care, Maya,” Nan said.

“I know. Keep me informed, will ya?”

“Of course.”

As she exited the medical room, Maya spotted Roci and Yosi watching from a corner. She looked at them and then walked up to them.

“Another SIL?” Yosi asked. “She looks so frail.”

“What’s her name?” Roci asked, a tone of excitement in her new voice. Maya looked down at the AI and saw that she had ‘grown’, no longer the one foot form she had originally been created as. Now she stood nearly three feet tall. Maya didn’t know if Roci remade or body or if it had actually ‘grown’, though she wouldn’t be surprised if the latter was the case.

“Badblood. She is sick and Nan will be taking care of her for a while,” Maya said.

“Can I have her?” Roci asked excitedly. “I’ll take care of her!”

Maya snapped forward and grabbed Roci firmly by the shoulder. The big purple eyes stared at her.

“She is a person,” Maya said sternly. “She is a living thinking person. She is not an object to be traded or owned. Understand?”

Roci stuttered and nodded frantically.

“It was a joke,” Roci said lamely.

“Don’t ever fucking joke about owning people,” Maya snapped.

Yosi stared at them, but slowly nodded along with Maya.

“I-I’m s-“

“You have work to do, girl,” Maya said. “Get to work!”

Roci scampered off, her tentacles practically dragging her along.

Maya let out an explosive breath. “Shit.”

Yosi patted her on the shoulder.