Waking In Twilight

Skerrit’s World – the former frontier

Magda finished the last of her chores and trudged the long walk back to the ranch. The weather was hot, the typica dry heat of the planet and the great Red sun of Struve 113 blared in the distance. Magda had studied the make up of the system many times over, the crystal-clear nights on the ranch gave a beautiful view of the entire system. The beauty of the pale blue gas giant Cassandra always made her feel somehow secure, like it was a huge tree that anchored the garden of the star-system she had grown up in.

She dusted off her boots and dropped her tools into the lap of the Reliant AV10 mech, a simple work mech that was old and dusty but still did a fine job. Her father was wary of “self-thinking” mechs but old Reliant was no more a thinker than an old tractor or a pair of pliers. The Reliant carried the tools and the duster back to the tool-shed as Magda, without so much as a backwards glance, walked into the longhouse.

“Pa?” she called out. Her father gave no reply but she heard the joyous barks of Peter and Lem, the ranches resident water-hounds. The two long furred canines ran over and licked at her hands and she knelt down to run her hands through their thick fur and nuzzle their pointy faces. Lem, always somewhat more bashful than his brother, hung back whilst Peter got the biggest fuss so Magda made sure to give Lem a few strokes too.

As she poured a glass of water from the still, she thought about her father’s words regarding the dogs. ‘Them dogs are just tools too. They gotta pull their weight, justify the cost in water or I’ll have to get rid.’  Somehow, she doubted this was true, they were more part of the family now than mere animals like the small herd that dwelt out on the edge of the ranch.

She turned on the lights and soft hum emanated from the generator in the store-room as the main dining room lit up. Magda jumped slightly as she saw her mother had been sat in the dark at the kitchen table.

“Ma, you gave me a start” she breathed.

“Oh hey Mags. Did you get all your chores done?” asked her mother. The tone was neutral, sleepy.

“Yeah of course. Weeded out, then dug a new drainage channel. The soy-beats are looking healthy.”

“Good girl.” Her mother replied somewhat absently.

“What’s up ma?”  asked Magda, feeling the tension and the gossamer wings of fear for the first time.

“Your pa will tell you. I’ll get your brothers too”. Her mother, a short, strong backed woman of forty got to her feet and walked past Magda to the dorm room where Magda’s little brothers slept. Magda’s oldest brother was far away, serving in the Uniform as her father referred to it.

Magda waited as her father walked slowly up the garden path. A small compact lawn of blue-grass had been grown at great cost in water but her father considered it both a point of pride and a moral point to bend the planet to their will as much as they had bent to its. A person on Skerrit’s world only had to look up and see the silhouette of the huge space-mirror to see that the planet had been forced to make allowances to the humans that now called the world their home.

Egan scampered into the front-room and jumped onto his favorite bean-bag. Lowell, the youngest, looked cranky and rubbed his eyes as his mother brought him into the dining room. Their father closed the screen doors, Magda took fright for real as she saw his face, he looked pale.

Egan ran over to his father and Royce, a kindly but prematurely old man of forty-three, put a hand on the boys shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze. Egan, who always wanted to rough-house these days, looked to wrestle past it but her father, with the effortless strength that came with decades of hard labour with ones hands, bundled the seven year old up as if he had no weight at all and put him back on his bean-bag.

Lowell, only five, sat at his mothers’ side as she sat at the couch. Magda stayed stood, she couldn’t really explain why it felt ‘like the right thing to do’. She briefly thought to the teachings of Dr Lane Williams, who had said that all things had purpose, even if in the moment that purpose cannot be discerned and that the purpose can sometimes be more painful than sweet. But that there is purpose there, even if we cannot yet know it.

Her father cleared his throat and spoke to the family. “So gotta tell you all something tonight and it won’t be easy to hear, nor make a full amount of sense. But I need you to listen and then go about your normal lives after.”

There was a dry ticking silence.

Her father took a breath and Magda saw that he was fighting back tears. Magda was certain she had only ever seen her father cry twice in all the time she had known him.

“There was a war, far from here. The Karkouri attacked and the Empire has lost, its fallen.”

Magda swallowed and Egan looked over at her with a quizzical look on his face. Lowell began to grumble but his mother put an arm around him.

Magda wanted to ask but father continued in the grim telling.

“Kerrel is dead. I’m sorry to tell you this but he’s dead. His ship was destroyed and the local military say that a lot of good folks died up there. They can’t figure it right now”.

Magda felt slow, hot tears fall down her face. She battled them back, they were a waste of water but she was seeing Kerrel in her minds-eye, three years ago dressed in his navy uniform before he took the shuttle up to the waiting transport. Her mother had wept like she would never see him again and, as it turned out, she had been right.

‘Died billions of miles from home for an Empire we never really understood’ Magda thought bitterly.

“There’s one more bit I has to tell you. The Empire has fallen and our planet is going to fall under the Hounds. I don’t know anymore than that right now. Aigil Fallon says the planet will resist but them Hounds are fierce warriors so I’m not sure about that. Things may get a bit harder or may not change at all. But I just wanted you to know the news. Now boys, you come give your pa a hug and then get back to bed.”

Egan and Lowell walked over to their father. Lowell was crying but quietly, Egan still looked baffled but Magda saw with pride that he too was holding back his own tears. Their father exchanged a brief hug with his boys.

Magda looked at her father with shining eyes.

“And me pa?”

As the boys trudged back to bed, her father looked down for the longest time.

Her mother came over with a mug in her hand and gave it to Magda. Magda smelt the liquor in the drink and looked with surprise at her mother.

“If not today, then when?” her mother said with a weak smile.

Magda savoured the drink but, ironically, would never drink the cactus brewed drink again, as it would always bring back this day to her for the rest of her long life.

“You’re gonna need to be stronger, stronger than you already are.” Her father said with a weary voice.

Magda nodded but he cut her off before she could speak.

“The Hounds will rob this planet of its will and some folks will fight and some folks will go along and some folks will just try to keep to themselves. But it’ll get ugly. Your mother and I need you to help us here but we’ve decided you need to go somewhere else”.

“But pa, I can help here!” she replied, a rush of emotions boiling up in her. Her face flushed and she felt more tears but her father took two steps and held her in work callused hands.

“There’s a place far from here where there are folks that have a plan, have resources and, most important, aren’t gonna be under the Hound banner, nor the damned Karkouri one. You’ll be safe and can learn and can grow and can be something more than a broken backed rancher or the wife of one.”

Magda protested weakly but her father was strong and kind in equal measure.

“You’ll go, you’ll come back, we’ll be here. This isn’t forever. But it won’t be safe here now. The boys don’t understand but it will get much worse for people here and there will be blood shed. And I want more for you. So you’ll go. You’ll make us proud.”

His voice cracked for just a second as he looked down at his feet, then over at the framed picture of his oldest son, now lost among the stars, lost with so many other souls and the dreams of a people who had once stared up at a night sky in a dream and now found themselves awake in a nightmare.

He looked up and said “You’ll go on making us both very proud.”

Outside, the baleful red sun began to set slowly, casting the whole ranch in a blood red glow.