I hit the jackpot when I found the cartons of fags. I don’t smoke; but I knew after a week or two of this mess the cancer sticks would be worth more than gold. There were five of us sorting through bags by the rear cargo bay so hiding them was going to be bit of an issue. But I’d set up a temporary stash under a pile of empty luggage. Behind us were a crowd of people anxiously awaiting the return of their precious heirlooms. The bloke in charge, Phillip, was clear all food and survival supplies would be rationed and people would get the rest of their crap when we were done. Tough shit they were stupid enough to let me in on it. Life is much easier when I play the angel; but in most circumstances it makes having fun difficult.

“Your bird was sent straight to the vet, sir. I found her myself two hours ago. Poor thing looked knackered. I hope she manages to recover. Here’s the rest of your stuff. Please sort through so we know nothing is missing.” Obviously I wouldn’t take anything from the pile I was supposed to hand back. I’ve been copped for stupid shit. But not for anything that stupid. It was a shame. The bird guy’s wife has a really nice Rolex. Diamond studded and everything. I did manage to snag a pair of nice trainers in my size. I didn’t even have to nick them. The bloke said they were for his daughter back home but he thought I needed them more seeing as I was wearing sandals and three pairs of ‘donated’ socks.

Melissa was, as always, standing around looking bossy and not actually doing anything useful. No, that’s a lie. She was successfully sucking up to our new overlords. And I had to give her this much; she did manage to land us this sweet gig. The work itself sucked; but a girl’s gotta eat.

“Holy shit,” I heard Eric scream. I got up from sorting through some granny knickers and went over to his station.

“What did you find,” I asked?

“Portable solar panels for camping trips. They’re pretty low wattage; but it should be enough to keep a few phones charged. At least until our engineers can build a generator.”

“We have engineers?” I found myself asking.

“Three. An electrical and two mechanical engineers travelling for work.” He replied quickly.

“Great, so all we need is a coal mine, and iron mine, a refinery, a foundry, a copper mine, a river and a few hundred workers and we’ll have a steam turbine by the end of the year.” I replied optimistically.”

“I’m sure the turbines in the jet engines could be repurposed. And we have plenty of wood,” he countered.

“I’ll bet you five quid that it doesn’t work.”

He shouted “deal” as I headed back to my station. The idiot didn’t realise if we were stuck here that long the money would basically be worthless. So I was winning either way.

As I sorted my ears scouted out the area for anything interesting. The young South African, Sipho, was playing chess against a group of adults. Apparently his auntie had a stroke during the crash and every time he was dragged away from the chess board he started freaking out.

After beating one of them handily the guy asked, “damn, kid; what’s your rating?”

“I haven’t competed in enough tournaments for a FIDE rating. But on chess.com I’m 1807.” He replied.

“That’s impressive. And you’re eleven?”

“No. I just turned nine.”

The man looked shell-shocked. “At this rate you’ll be a grandmaster by fifteen.”

“Unless I plateau early,” the boy said flatly.

“How did you learn? Did you have a coach?”

“No. My father taught me a bit before he died. After that I played on the internet with the computers at the library. I wasn’t supposed to use them more than an hour at a time. But the head librarian said children could play and watch lessons on youtube as long as we used them to learn. A lot of children complained and said other games could teach things. But she was old fashioned in that way.

“We only saved up enough money to travel to a tournament at the beginning of the year. When I came first in the children’s competition the man who won the adult competition said he’d sponsor me to go to his home in America to train me before my next tournament.”

If we find civilisation it might be fun to do a chess sharp con. I thought.

Suddenly Xola came running up to me with something hidden under her hoodie. It was squirming. I couldn’t get a good look at it before she dragged me behind one of the wheels and said, “You have to hide her. They’re killing her brothers and sisters. She was the only one I could save.”

I looked down at what she could save. It was a wolf pup. “What am I supposed to do with this?”, I asked. “Hide her, steal her some food. I’ll pay you back. Somehow.”

I rubbed my forehead. I do my best to be nice to everybody and this is my reward? I thought.

“Fine. But you owe me big. And you’re taking care of her once I find a decent hiding spot.”

“I have to go on the training hike soon. I’ll be back in a few hours. Thank you very much.”

Xola ran off and I was stuck hiding the wiggling bundle of joy well away from me to avoid the risk of it pissing all over me.

Luckily I had scouted a few hiding places. I didn’t want a noisy animal near any of my real stashes. But I had a mostly empty spot that I was planning to clear out behind one of the now empty cargo containers. I tied a rope around his neck to keep him there. I didn’t want to be the sort of person who kept animals chained up all day. Especially with how little I was going to feed it. Food would become a valuable commodity and I didn’t want to waste any of it on something that would probably grow up and murder one of us before being put down.

I spent the rest of the day carting messages and supplies around the expanding camp. Everything important was being kept in the plane and the only entrances were rope ladders. But there were latrines being dug due to the failure of our internal plumbing. And firepits set up for cooking. Weapons were being carved from fallen branches and guards were being set to keep watch.

It was nearing dusk when Major Phillip called a general meeting. And the sun was starting to set as we all huddled underneath the plane. I thought it was a huge risk to be caught in the open. But I overheard Phillip tell his lieutenants that he wanted to head things off before a row broke out between the passengers. So everyone who was physically able climbed down the rope and moved into a semi-circle in the frigid evening air.

“I’ve been hearing complaints about my decisions during my management of this disaster. In my opinion some of these are reasonable. Some of them aren’t. But I thought I’d explain my….”

A woman’s voice shouted from the shadows, “No one elected you. You kicked us out of seats we paid for, stole our belongings and prioritised your cronies over us. We won’t stand for this.”

Surprise, surprise a lot of voices shouted support for her.

Phillip replied, “I’ve organised first aid, emergency supplies and other basic survival necessities. If anyone would like to take over my control of these things we can put it a vote.

A man’s voice belted out, “Vote for who? I don’t trust any of you shitheads?”

The shouting kept going on and on. Maybe a third were for Major Phillip. A third thought he had no authority to organise anything but should be allowed to run as part of an election. And the last third wanted him arrested and detained until rescue. Of course it did give me an opportunity to practice my pickpocketing. I didn’t snag too much. I just wanted to keep my fingers warm while we waited for this freakshow to end.

Eventually it was decided a vote would held in three days. But then it was decided Phillip couldn’t remain in control until that date. At which point people realised we’d need an interim leader. Five people nominated themselves but Phillip won handily with his third as the next runner up, a sleazy lawyer, only got a quarter. The lawyer was quite smooth, claiming he had years of experience in local government and did a term in the US military. But everyone was exhausted so I’m guessing half of it was complete nonsense.

At that point it was nearing midnight. But someone argued a plurality wasn’t enough for a proper decision and wanted a runoff vote between Phillip and the lawyer guy. No one wanted the mess to carry on any longer so Phillip remained interim leader for the moment.

Appendix 2.a

A discussion on ethics and morality in the Other World

One of the more surprising differences between our worlds in the differences we seen in morality and ethics. In their world all humans, being the only intelligent species, are supposed to have equal say in how their governments are run. Almost all residents of a nation are citizens with rights to vote for their leadership and the law is supposed to treat them equally. Regardless of the pedigree of their bloodline or their skill, experience and ability to contribute materially to civilisation. They let vagrants have the same rights as priests, generals and even kings. And most forms of slavery/indentures/serfdom is banned as violating those principals.

Even the Maroons admit their world is not able to implement these ideals efficiently. Which makes it all the more surprising that the Maroons remain fanatical in defending the tenets of these ideologies. And this is after years of being exposed to a more enlightened society.