"Fiery Birds', Part XI

It had been several days since Zho saw Dr, Trant. One of her assistants, a shorter red haired woman named Selin M'Conel instead worked with him. He enjoyed being with Dr. Trant, but soon his disappointment in not seeing her was set aside when Selin introduced him to someone new.

Another New Person. 

It was a woman named Kesh. 

She was a Centerlander. Kesh was old enough to be his mother, but was very lively. She spoke in the same lyrical way the Centerlanders did.

"So, Zho, when did you seek to make the journey?" Kesh asked, as they ate lunch together in the large courtyard of the compound he'd called home these past thirteen days.

"I think I always wanted to go," he said.

"Oh, did you? Myself as well! Born that way, I think," Kesh smiled.

"What do you do here?" Zho asked.

"I tend the plants in the city. You have seen more the city?"

"No, just what I can see here."

"Oh, it is wonderful! They are all so kind to me! You know how many of us are here?"

"Dr. Trant said a few..."

"Fifteen. There are fifteen of us New People here. They let us live among them. I have a home near a forest they call the Arbor. When you get out, you must go there..."

A noise, what sounded like a small bird, came from her shoulder bag that was laying nearby.

"I must get that, please excuse me," she said, as she reached into the bag and pulled out a small, dark glossy blue, round pebble looking thing. It was the size of her hand, and had a glowing circle on it. She brought it to her right ear.

"Yes," she said to it, then paused, then said "I am having a lunch now, but will leave once I finish. Where is it? Yes, I will. Thank you."

She lowered it, and the circle faded.

"The humans use those," he asked, "what is it?"

"They call it a "comset". I just tell it with who I want to talk, and I can. They say it is their "science", but to me it is just... a thing," she said, as she put it back in her bag.

"I wonder if I will get one," Zho said.

"If you are to live here, they will."

He picked up his fork, the utensil that puzzled him, and was about to grab some more orange, when he felt the need to ask "do you miss your people?"

"No", she said bluntly, "I was odd, and they acted odd to me. When I left, I was happy to. I am happy here."

"I only miss my mother," Zho said.

"By now, Zho, she knows you are fine. You know, that's what some of the elders do."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I have learned that some elders were once like me and you, and went back and have comsets. They hide them..."

"Are they spying on us?"

"Maybe. They keep us safe."

Zho thought for a moment, "Gioff."

"What?"

"Gioff, an elder from my village. He is one of them. He is very old."

"Yes! The eldest of the elders! That is how it is in my village!"

"Did you know?" Zho asked.

"No. I found out after I came here. Now, I must eat. There is a... rose bush?... that needs to be trimmed on the other side of the city and I do not want to disappoint those who employ me."

Zho nodded, and they returned to eating.

-

Alouisa had a lot on her mind.

Not only was it apparent that the New People were genetically engineered, it also appeared that the engineers did not stop there. They had apparently produced another species of human, but for what? More disturbing was the thought of what might account for the apparent helplessness of the New People.

They weren't bred to work at all. 

They were bred to be food.

That thought alone made talking with Zho and the other fourteen New People very awkward for her. They were so childlike, but they were really nothing more than a commodity to be consumed. 

This was also the genesis of other thoughts she had. She had a theory.

-

The chime on her office door let her know that Kalles had arrived. As he entered, she stood up and greeted him.

"I suppose by now you know of Millar Understone's findings at the site in the western ruins," she said.

"I do. Disturbing. What is it you wanted to discuss with me?"

She walked around to the back of her desk and gazed out over the sea. It was almost noon, and the sky was dusty gray. There were storms coming in.

"Now that we seem to have evidence to support the reason the New People were created, I have a theory. It still doesn't explain why the post-humans disappeared. But it's a start."

"Let's have it," he said, leaning back in the chair.

"Suppose that the human population did not stop growing. Our people left long before, and settled nearby stars and continued to thin out, so our numbers did not grow as fast, because we kept pushing on. The humans who stayed behind on Earth instead stopped going altogether. They modified Mars to be more Earth-like, settled it, and then abandoned it. We don't know what happened there."

"Go on," the Chancellor said.

"But here on Earth, the human race kept growing, and growing. Humans need to eat. Farming exacts a toll on the land, and you need plenty of it. Soon, they devastated almost the entire planet, covering it with vast farms, while almost all the remaining humans lived in enormous cities. And they continued to consume. 

"Soon, they depleted the majority of animal life on the planet, the prime source of protein. Perhaps they experimented with alternate sources, but found them lacking, I'm speculating there..."

"What sort of time scale would that happen?" Kalles asked.

"Ten thousand years maybe, more than likely far less. For some reason, the human race turned its back on the stars and instead began to turn inward. At some point, a strong source of protein became available, but only a certain portion of the population could tolerate it. This group continued to grow and evolve. They were also very intelligent, but, again I can't even speculate as to why, they did not turn to space as a way to find more resources. But this one group became dominant, and they began to engineer their own kind. They found an alternate source of protein; themselves.

"In time, they had probably many different types of humans. They probably had engineered laborers, that's the theory I have for the very heavy remains that they've found out there. I doubt that the New People were alone in their... capacity."

"So these cannibal post-humans engineered more than one type of food source... human, is that what you think?"

"Yes. It troubles me so. Almost everywhere else, humankind evolved into a more peaceful species. Sure, there were plenty of exceptions in the first few thousand years after our departure, we have that on record. But humanity evolved towards the positive. I do not... I cannot... speculate as to why this hideous form of evolution occurred here on the home planet. Population pressure is the only thing I can think of."

Kalles raised one of his gray eyebrows.

"If that's the case, if there were so many," he asked, "then why are there so few remains?"

"Maybe they... further... recycled," she shuttered.

-

It was the afternoon. It had been raining for a long time, and Zho was getting bored. They still would not allow him beyond the compound, so he tried to amuse himself with the games they had given him. His favorite was one which consisted of colored plastic shapes. He could lay them on his table and put them together, and then press a red button on a little blue box, and watch the shapes all move, by themselves, back until they were sorted be color.

But it was still boring.

His door chimed, so Zho walked to answer it.

It was Selin, and another new person. He was older, with streaks of silver in his jet black hair. His face was clean shaven. 

This new person looked familiar.

It was his father, Kha.