Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57751 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57751 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
It was too great a distance to maintain a video feed. He had not seen the faces of his family in a very long time, but this was better than nothing.
“Atlas. We miss you.”
His father’s voice brought with it a flood of memories and emotions, the warmth of family and the feeling of home though he himself was many millions of miles away.
“I miss you too, Father.”
When he spoke to the old man his mind was full of images of distant sands and triple suns. He had grown up on a wild world and in a poor family. To most of the people on this ship, his family would be regarded as nothing more than primitives. But to Atlas, they were everything.
“We received the funds,” his father said. “You have been very generous, my son. With these moneys the village is able to drill new wells and irrigate new lands. You are preventing much suffering and death by starvation.”
Atlas tried not to smile too broadly with pride. He did not do what he did for thanks. He did what he did for the hundred or so siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and otherwise related Kitari who scavenged a living in the desert. The very same people who had once scraped together all they had to send him to the academy. All of his salary beside what he absolutely needed to supply himself appropriately went back to the village.
“Akiz and Frozi have both birthed their young,” his father said. “You are an uncle twice over. Two boys for Akiz, and three girls for Frozi. And your mother is due again in the next lunar cycle.”
“That is wonderful news,” Atlas said, while silently wondering how many more mouths there would be to feed, and whether his salary would stretch. A commander earned well, but when split between dozens of people even the largest salary started to feel meager. It did not help that his people, unlike humans, had two or three babies as standard, and it was not uncommon to have four or more.
Atlas was first born of more than forty siblings and counting, seven of whom were still living. The Kitari breeding strategy was born of necessity. Their world was a harsh and brutal place. Mortality rates were higher than most humans could fathom. Disease, malnutrition, and a plethora of hostile creatures on Kitar ensured that their civilization had never developed cities in the way most species did. They were nomadic, warlike, and generally desperate.
If not for the Authority’s charity, their species might very well have died out entirely around the time of Atlas’s tenth birthday. Nothing had grown that year. The solar flares had been too harsh, and the rains had all but dried up. Everything starved. Over seven hundred and twenty days, Atlas watched his family succumb until there were only a dozen or so of them left, living on the condensation traps they made in the sands with plastic and rocks dripping down into sealed clay vessels. Many other families suffered similar fates. Only the strong and the fortunate survived.
He still remembered staggering out of his father’s tent one afternoon, and seeing the Authority Alliance ship landing before them. It was a bright and shining thing in a world of hot dust. He had been dehydrated to the point of delirium, so he thought when the soldiers started to come from the ship bearing loads of water and food, more of either than he had ever seen in his entire life. But it had been real. It felt like an act of merciful gods. And it changed his life forever.
Of course it had not truly been benevolent charity that motivated the Authority to bring the Kitari into the alliance of species. Inclusion had come at a cost. The Authority had demanded seven hundred of Kitari’s most promising young male warriors consigned to them, and seven hundred every year after.
Atlas had been proud to become one of them. Though he was but a boy he had flown through the physical training. All the Kitari boys did. They were hardened in ways their human counterparts could not understand. However where most Kitari boys failed was in the academic pursuits. They were unable to understand the language in which they were being instructed, let alone the concepts the teachers were attempting to impart. As a result, most of the Kitari were deployed to front lines in grunt positions. Atlas was the first of his kind to fully graduate the academy and become an officer. It was a celebrated achievement, and one that had left him forever indebted.
“We can only hope they are blessed as their uncle has been,” his father said.
“I pray for such fortune for them and for you all,” Atlas replied. He then closed his eyes as his father told him of all the happenings in the tribe. Of the progress they were making, of the homes they were building. In all his youth, Atlas had never seen the inside of a solid house. He had been raised constantly on the move, fleeing the droughts and chasing the rains. That was one element of life aboard the Audacity he could relate to. The constant movement soothed him as he listened to his almost impossibly distant father tell him of the superior dust melon harvest.