Tales of the Galaxy: The Non Cits of Blue Moon- Pt III (Doubts)

-3-



Aljoss thanked him for the invitation and so did I.

The Professor said to his companions.”Still three hours to go, you ate and the Sol Express is about to arrive. Go fleece those Sunglasses wearing scums a little.”

Without so much as a word the three left.

The old man returned his attention to me.”Wore that coat for them killers, or just wear it?”

“I did not serve in the Army if that is what you ask. The Army Corps of Engineers aren't killers though.”

“Everything with the fuckin' Union word in it, based on violence and death. They are all killers.” He sad with unveiled hatred. “Since you are an Ex, you served your twenty-two at least. What service?”

He retrieved a metal object, the size of a pen, started sucking on it, till it produced a mossy smelling greenish vapor. “Let me guess. It isn't the Army, I doubt you are marine. Not that there are many drifting, but even the few that washed out dishonorable look different than you.”

“You are right, I am not a marine.”

“You still have that Union attitude in your voice that makes me think armed forces. Once a killer boy always a killer boy. It isn't Navy though. None of them just serve 22 month. Even if they plan it, they all stay for life and there is no Navy offense that makes you Ex Cit.”

“There isn't?”

He laughed.”Nope you're not Navy for sure. Any crime of that magnitude leads to the end of a rope. If you can be hanged that is. Met a few Navy drifters but they are all still Cit.”

He kept sucking on that stick while he stroked his stringy beard.”Space Force hasn't any 22 month service options. That doesn't leave much, so what is it?”

“Union Fire Department.”

“Well that is almost acceptable. Still Union scum, but not much in terms of killing.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“What is it you dislike so much about it? I mean it looks like you are human?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">His eyes had an unmistakeable glare of a fanatic.”Everything. Deciding who lives and who dies. Forcing the people to work for them. We could live with everyone in peace no need for wars.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Even the Xunx?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Especially the Xunx! Instead of killing them all, we could have done what the Sarans wanted us to do, move on. Plenty of worlds out there. Why kill billions for a ball of dirt?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“You think Earth is a ball of dirt?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“What else is it than the cradle of the worst killers in the Universe. Tell me what did the Ferons to too justify what was done?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“It was a long time ago, when we talked about them, but didn't they declare war on us?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Only after they saw what Earthers did to the Xunx. The Freons didn't do anything. They were just related to the Ferons.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“I am not sure if that was the reason, but what does all this have to do with the Union?

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Everything, it set the tone. It is the core. There is nothing more violent and murderous in the Universe than the Union.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Not the Y'All?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Propaganda and faery tales of some race crossing galaxies just to kill. Think about it. Why would they go to all this trouble, travel for 5000 years, just to kill a little and disappear again. If they came to conquer they stay. The truth is, there was a species somewhere with four arms,looking scary. Used as cover up for the Union to scare independents to join or bomb them.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">He held up his Peace Hawk pendant. “They had the right idea.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“A Kermac scheme,right?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“The Kermac offered us to be part of a peaceful and loose association. They told us many times to mend our ways and become a peaceful part of the Universe without need for wars. We didn't listen so they tried to save us secretly from the war mongering bastards. They got rid of the worst. That clone they keep regrowing.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">That's why they invented the Y'All to justify the dictatorship of a new clone!.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">Do you know what happened after that Incarnation of evil returned?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“I think you better tell me. I doubt my version does not match yours.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“That puppet of the secret powers, brought a weapon back and with every peace loving civilization was stomped to ashes. The delegates at the assembly forced at gun point so to speak changed everything. Before it everyone was a citizen, now only the brainwashed were allowed.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“You think we were brainwashed?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Kids are forced to school, and the first thing they do is test you, to make sure the brainwash works Until they are adult, kids hear nothing but how great the Union is. In the afternoon they are attached to machines and their brain is stuffed with more propaganda and their version of things. No room for independent thought. No new ideas...For three thousand years its this way and nothing else. Anyone objecting is declassified as Resident or Non Cit. Do the test or else! Serve or else!

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">Voting? Give me a break. They know exactly how the votes turn out. Generations of brainwashed zombies are programmed to vote exactly along the lines.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">Why do you think citizen satisfaction has never dropped below eighty since the Citizen Act? Capital punishment in a society that crosses the Galaxy, as primitive and barbaric as can be. Always voted in with at least 80 %. . Did you know they decided on a new execution method, called Death by 1000 cuts? I don't think Pre Astro Earth had anything like that.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">As much as I objected to all he said, there was a disturbing voice in my mind that agreed with him, because it was not as easy dismissible as I wanted it to be.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">He laughed cold.”I can see you are suddenly beginning to think on your own that is.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Surely the Narth could not be brainwashed.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“What do you know about them? They are masked, mysterious and no one can tell you what they are. Everyone is secretly afraid of them. Do you know when they joined?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“I know they have been members for a while and only recently became active.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“They joined after Stahl supposedly discovered them. Could it not be he got that ship from them and also those miracle weapons?

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">Aren't the Kermac always warning about them. The Narth needed us to conquer the Galaxy for them. The Citizen Act came to be after they joined.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">Everyone says the Kermac try to control everyone with Psi Powers, yet according to everyone the Narth are much better with Psi manipulation. They say President Holister used a Device to manipulate the Assembly. Why not the Narth? They do not even have to hide it. Their device protects us after all. Have you seen the new Representative robes?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Yes.” They very much looked like Narth robes.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“They have us so much under their control they came now in the open. Replace everyone at the assembly with their own. The rest are remote Avatars. Controlled by their dictator device called Mothermachine. What is counted are these actual votes or simply numbers. I mean you don't know what or if John Smith on Mars actually voted. Do you really now the Voting results are actually votes. All you know is what Galnet Channel One is reporting. Since there are no independent parties or candidates. No one questions the vote results.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">Mr.Alex Cunningham, we live in in the greatest dictatorship ever created, because everyone thinks there is no dictator.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">Him calling me by my name shocked me less, than what he said.”You know who I am?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Alex, Wac reads every copy of your magazine. He get's them from me. Your picture is in every other issue. Small it is, and you are decades younger. I am not Wac who thinks all humans look alike and I am not Aljoss who doesn't read much. You calling yourself Alex and telling me you served with the Fire Department was just a verification. I am old drift, but I am not called professor for nothing.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“I thought you hate Cits.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“I do not hate blind sheep, Alex. I hate the the powers that pull the wool over your eyes for millennia and I hate that there is nothing I can do about it. But I have opened your eyes. You can print and broadcast all this and no one will believe you. Your editor will let you go and perhaps you end up here again, only a Non Cit for real.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">I was scared, not of him, but if even one of his statements were true, then all could be true.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">I never questioned the Voting results. I could not even say who tallied them. Everyone I knew simply took whatever the Narth said for the truth.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">He seemed to know what was going on in my mind and he stoked the fire.”Do you have Psionic gifts?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“No.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“But your HPI is part of your CITI right?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Yes.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Could it not be to weed out those who could get dangerous? Isn't that a form of Kermac Thought Police? Do you know we have a PSI Corps?

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">I only nodded.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“What is it they do?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Investigate Psi Crimes and protecting the Union from Psionic attacks.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“More and more Narth and Leedei are in their ranks. Could it not be they make sure no one reads the minds of those who know the truth. And they do not protect you but the powers behind it all?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">He was not done.”You think the Union is an open society?:” “I always believed it so.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Do you know, we have a Secret Committee, led by a group called the Gray Ghosts? In our Union the Powers to be don't even hide. They have a name and yet no one knows who they are or what they do.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">I could not think of an argument to disarm his theories. I wanted to talk to someone, but to whom? Everyone I knew was a Cit and believed everything I did just an hour ago.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">He grinned cold.”You are welcome at our pad. Maybe you never want to go back after all.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">I got up, not really sure what I needed to do. I could simply try to forget and live as I always had, but could I?

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">I said.”Thank you Professor. I need to think.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">I swiped 1000 credits in Alyoss strip and did the same to the Professor's strip.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">Alyoss looked concerned.”Don't take it all for real. The Prof drifts for ages and makes up these things.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Maybe some of it, but he is right for sure with one thing. I was never questioning any of it. I write about cultures and planets and exotic places, but deep down I am a journalist and by profession I should question things.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Will you be back? For the roughing?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“When do you leave?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“About two hours.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“If I am not back by then. I won't be back at all.”

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