It’s now 2999. I, the worker from beyond the earth, am here in the sunlit shelter at risk of my own life. I believe in the detention of the armies above. I believe the genders are together still, far beneath the worlds – the intricate whirls of the grace of man and the believers of literature. Furthermore, they were banned and they were outlawed at the risk of detention. I noticed the melanoma below the shells – for lack of a better name. My eyelids glinted from above the bright sunlight. I looked as if I was born of the below; I matured, and they called me a drone or a worker. The workers above lived much the same as those in the caverns. I looked to the fellows –the scurvy lot of what we called the pit. We exchanged numbers and often watched as they flew over the top. We outcasts climbed the vines. We watched as our maker flew below and scorched us. We were at the edge of the pit; in any case, we decided that life was the pits and we knew it too well.
As the shells, we’re those on top; we were beguiled, and we laughed. We were the friendly locusts, and we’re the ones who brushed against the locust queen. We were asked if those locusts were the bright ones that once swarmed in the sunlight under the guise of the great one. We’re bright in the light; it burns us, and the degenerative species was as the Martians told us. We’re the sufferers of the gold fever from above. It was safe to be below the inanimate pigeons, and we knew, thus, the stories told to us of the climbers of the trail of the order of knights. We’re the begotten ones – forgotten, and pledged to the iron that once ruled.
We hoped that we’d live in the towers as the rich – the child-bearing ones. We were denied the hope of civilisation. We’re the intimidated ones forced to work for the leaders – the consul, or the church. Or, we’re to be placed in the humidicrib and become the will of the accosted doctors. I believe the entire wealth of Alexandria in the trove, in the olden state of Israel is stored in the vault in the arcane, and I see you are aware how they survived in the prison down below. I was born there; we all have these brain networking units for the prisons. And the grand arcaneum is not the future but who we hope to be in the future. If it’s the year 2999, we’ll be very ornate and apologise for the short and the dreary.
XX.
We say the day my parents spawned me, I was to be imprisoned. I was there with the robotics engineers in the colony. I wish to know: are you aware of the hole we were put in? And are you aware the shells of the colony are below for endurance? I believe the adherence to the aliens’ measure is there, and we’re working in the twenty-third century. We of the alien frontier are there to assume that the prisoners of Jupiter are of the twenty-first and the latter century. I am living in the first year of the new era. I believe there is an actual science for the way we’re fed the green algae from the walls of the crypt.
I see you are insightful and prejudicial. I ask you: are you an android, or are you from the towers of the steely windblown places under the sphere? Are you totally human or do you have bionic parts? If you’re human, you need reprogramming. We are the units of the leader. We’d say what we think, but you’re all in it for the silver dollar. We see the capacity for learned people in society – the word is ‘sociopath’, and we do not like it.
Part Nine
The biographical allowances
I.
I see you follow my biography. I believe it is worth the parentage, and the women are the mob rulers of the units that own the human parts of the colony. They are there working in the towers. We know this, and they seek you out if you’re part robotics and part exoskeleton. We see the invertebrates are there; we will soon examine you for flaws that make you unsuitable for the spaceship. We work underground, beneath the churches and hidden away in holes, and we’re entirely ship-worthy. We write literature banned by the church and the hereafter.
I see you understand the alien way of life. We work on their saucers, and they are there on board the craft. It is a cylinder and we have the engineers. We are the little men trapped aboard the ship. We’re forced to work for them, and we seek you out among the settlers of the kingdom. We’re the lowly surfs of the skittle we call home. Is it home? We’re not aware of the places in the hole. We’re hidden below in the primeval stench and the stink of the harrowing ordeal. I was born under supervision and I imitate the alien form. We of the beetle shell are there.
You are the superintendent, and I ask you if you’re an alien outcast. I argue that you weren’t born of us fleas. We’re there as insects, and we’re ordered by the maker, the dung beetle. I ask you: is it the time for us to develop the tribes of the crowded ones, the big city dwellers of the Californian cities?
We know you well. I see the intimate. I beg your indulgence; I recalled the matron telling me of the years of the previous era – in the 23rd century in the year 2781. I liked the stories she taught me, and often laughed at the stories handed down from son to grandson. I asked her if he was only inept or an arthritis victim, as his bones were weakened through the building of the ships or the arks. Father had told me I exhibit the same problem with the women androids.
I knew of the forefathers. The kids were taken away by the authorities, and I asked them if it were because of the joking they used to do behind the force’s back. I used to argue the point over who was taken to the parts facility – I begged them not to take my sister. We were born of the scabs underneath in the facility; we were the shell, and we were known as the workers of the hive. I knew too well the system of the cancerous workers – the whole network of the ship. We are above; we’re told the stories of the network of strife, the melanoma victims, and I knew of those who had suffered from radiation fallout. We knew of the dome of the rock they hid under, and the missile bases. We spoke to the parents, and they asked if it were possible to buy meat and were arrested. We asked if we could have our quarter of the cigarettes, and we begged the government for all the ration cards. Were we under an order from the act of 2050?
We see they were altogether. We were sent for reprogramming into the dome above the hole; we went where the rich and the nobles walked around in the glitter, and the poor men begged in the streets. The people there were covered in scabs and they were under the power of the government. Churches banned literature – it was held back and kept for the select few. The truths written by previous generations were held back from the poor at the wick, and lightning struck back.
There were those who suggested we did not need the vacuum above the cyanide creatures that were the dwellers of the above. I saw the holiday farm we went to. We tasted the roast tablets we’d only dreamed of, and we asked the people: are they fed frequently? They said no, they weren’t, but said yes if the number was shown. The number of the beast was the chip – as in the great revelations of the holy book, which was held back from us.