Authors: Christopher Costanza
Eventually, Horus stated the testing was done and walked over to me, still in a state of bliss.
“Atlas, I don’t even really need to look at the chart, I already know there’s been a substantial improvement.”
I had to keep up the illusion that I had great respect for his work so I said “Absolutely, I can see it too. There’s no question… It’s remarkable... All of your hard work has finally paid off. I knew it would Horus.”
After he studied the chart, he happily concluded the native had scored a 37.
He turned to me, looking as though he had conquered the world, and said “Do you realize that when we leave, we will have gifted them with several hundred thousand years of evolution?.. They’d probably discover the wheel within a few generations!.. And I could keep going if I want to Atlas, I could bring him to at least a 60!.. But that
would be too high. It could cause problems for us.”
He was so thrilled, he ran over to the phone and proudly reported his accomplishments to Neros, meanwhile requesting to have more natives captured.
After he explained what he had done, I heard him say “Empty out some of the larger storage rooms, I’ll have it ready for mass distribution soon… I’ll be able to treat hundreds of them a month. We’ll be able to go back to Aeris in less than the projected time, without a doubt.”
In my head I added “At the expense of the natives.”
It looked as though Commander Neros and the ACI would get their wish…
As soon as Horus was done he came back over to me and said “I’m sure you overhead what the plan is now, so go ahead and take the rest of the day off. You’ve been working very hard and you deserve it. They won’t have everything set up until tomorrow and I want to make sure our perfect specimen doesn’t show any signs of side effects… Anything could happen over the next few hours. But I’d bet it’s safe to say he’s our first successful subject…”
I happily accepted the time away from the lab and forced myself to say “Congratulations, I can’t wait to get back to work” and shake his hand.
The native kept looking over at me and showing an interest… I didn’t want to stay in that room another moment… It was just too enraging and keeping my
emotions in check was still a daily struggle. Looking into his eyes made me feel like I could snap at any moment…
While I was walking back to my room I spotted Sara at the nutrition center so I went over and stood behind her in line.
She was still ignoring me and I knew we shouldn’t be talking, but I didn’t care… I tried anyway.
“Sara, Horus is done, he was able to successfully raise one of their intelligence scores; it’s all over.”
She wouldn’t turn around but she replied “I know, now please… remember what we talked about?”
I grabbed her arm and quietly said “You can talk to me, I won’t get us in trouble, I promise... If anything you’re making us look suspicious by not being my friend anymore… Horus does know what happened to us during stasis.”
She turned around and whispered “Atlas, just give it some more time and I’ll come to you… This isn’t going to last much longer but you have to wait… Now please get away from me… You could ruin everything... Please trust me.”
Just as before… More hints… What I did know is that something was being planned and they couldn’t tell me about it because I was Horus’ assistant… And that whatever it was, according to Sara, I’d find out soon… For the first time since this all started, as I walked back to my room I could really see a glimmer of hope.
I knew a lot of people had to be just as angry as I was….
I was so exhausted in general that I decided to just lie down. Even though I had all these different ideas running through my head and I was intensely stressed out… at the same time I had a feeling something great was going to happen.
I trusted Sara, and the idea that something big is being hidden from me because I’m Horus’ assistant makes perfect sense... It gave me enough comfort to make me feel like I could actually fall asleep.
As I lay there, I started to realize this stress I’d been carrying for months was actually starting to fade away… There was something happening in the shadows and according to Horus, I wouldn’t have to watch anymore native’s die on his table… It actually seemed like things were getting better. Maybe the worst of this was over...
I wouldn’t have to see the eleven bodies being removed from the lab every three or four days. I wouldn’t ever have to hear the drills again… No more standing there just watching like a coward as these helpless people are tortured so the ACI can save time and money…
Chapter 8
O
ver the next month Horus was successfully able to produce over a hundred “competent workers” for the mining division.
Due to the natives having to live such strenuous lives in comparison to us, they were reported as being much stronger and having twice the stamina. The mining division described the natives as “absolutely perfect.” They even reported the amount of chrysos being mined at the site their first week had doubled.
At the moment there were 14 different mining sites on X-451. Commander Neros ordered Horus to produce 200 workers for each site and even suggested experimenting with making a few slightly more intelligent than the others so they could act as leaders.
Horus was more than happy to begin the job and I continued to act as his lapdog… All the while knowing it was only a matter of time before something happened...
When he brought me to the massive holding rooms for the first time, I came closer to losing my composure than ever before...
He had hundreds of natives packed into each one. It was to the point where they barely had enough space to move and were standing in their own excrement… I couldn’t even see a way for any of them to get
comfortable and sleep.
The smell was unbelievable and I could tell some of them needed medical attention due to the disgusting conditions… According to Horus, that was of no concern.
“We have limited room, and limited time. You can’t let things like this bother you Atlas! All that matters is the mission, we don’t have the luxury to worry about losing a few of them.”
So much for not sacrificing anymore of the natives… It was just another lie… I wonder if he actually believed that when he told me…
Once Kayin was finally aware of what was happening he confronted me… I’ll never forget the way he looked at me… Like he didn’t know who I was… It was like he now felt the same way about me that I feel about Horus.
I tried to explain that I had no choice without telling him too much, but he didn’t listen…
His last words to me were “You’re a coward Atlas… a coward… I hope you can live with what you helped accomplish!”
He was probably right… Now all I could do was stand up and grasp for redemption once the opportunity presented itself. For now I was stuck… Hopefully one day he would understand.
We haven’t spoken since… I pass him in the hallways from time to time and he won’t even look at me… Just
like Sara… It only made this all the more difficult and helped rush me down the path to depression.
I spent weeks on end watching Horus inject hundreds of the natives, and it turned out his miracle concoction wasn’t so perfect. For every 3 or 4 that survived the process, at least one would die. So really, Horus just removed the aspect torture and now he was killing as many in a few days as he used to kill in a week.
Everyday men would show up to remove around half a dozen that died from the injections and even more that died from the cramped and diseased conditions of the storage rooms.
The worst part was that I could see the fear in their eyes. I could see the want to escape and go back to their lives; no matter how simple they may have been… And when the injections started to take effect, the increased level of intellect only made their fear intensify…
Even though Horus tried to argue that we were “helping them advance”, we didn’t have the right to kill them, interfere in their natural progress, and use them as slaves… These are the type of actions that should bring shame, not celebration.
Horus could make any excuses or present any benefits he wanted… It was just an avoidance of what was really happening to them… Not to mention, I knew he was really doing it for himself…
That little act was just for me. He may have been amused by the fact that he was advancing them, but he didn’t actually care…
The fact that the whole ship was going along with this, truly made me question my faith in humanity… I just had to keep repeating Sara’s words in my head and take comfort in the fact that I wasn’t the only one who cared. That soon, people were going to rise up and do something about it…
Several months after the mass treatments began, one of my fears became a reality.
Horus had successfully gotten two of the native’s to score almost 60 on the intelligence test. They were inserted at one of the mining camps to act as leaders to the natives. The long term plan was to create structure among them so mining camps could be totally run by natives. This way the number of sites could be increased and speed up production even more.
To me, it was also another way for them to hide the reality of what they were doing… Keep their struggle out of sight in the hopes it won’t affect everyone’s conscience. If they made it so none of our people on the mining sites had to see them struggle and die, everyone would forget… Just like they do on Aeris when it comes to the people outside the protective field…
Instead of hastening the mining process as Neros
had hoped, it totally backfired and lead to a mass slaughter.
The two more intelligent natives convinced all the others at the site to revolt against the mining teams and military. Except the situation wasn’t anywhere near as simple as Horus had projected.
It wasn’t just a matter of quickly instilling fear… The fighting lasted for hours and hundreds of natives fought to the death. Many of our own people were lost as well. They may have only had shovels, pickaxes and various tools from the site, but they were extremely fast, strong, and didn’t really react to being shot unless they were mortally wounded.
Horus and Neros were now directly responsible for the deaths of our own people as well... Simply because they wanted to hurry back to Aeris with their newly acquired wealth and scientific discovery.
All it did was set back the mining process again and make it so the military had to round up more natives for injections… And I later found out Kayin had to take part in defending the mining site… I knew he had to be devastated…
And the revolt wasn’t the only problem…Once the natives had witnessed the modern technology of our firearms and weaponry, partnered with our ability to come down out of the sky, they began worshipping the military and miners as deities… Unfortunately it spread to every site…
Apparently they had some understanding that in a way we were their creators… Sadly, it made it so they were now willing to be our slaves and work even harder due to fear. They started working from sunup to sunset, their only concern being to please us.
They had even created a very limited language and began to refer to us as the “Anu – Naki” which Horus interprets as meaning – “From the stars”…
The worst part is, I could tell Horus didn’t see it as a problem at all… In fact, he thoroughly enjoyed it… even thought it was funny. I guess I’m not surprised a man like him would relish being worshipped.
While it was heartbreaking, it was also interesting to observe how they automatically assumed we were some type of supernatural beings simply because they didn’t understand technology. They couldn’t comprehend that we were able to come from the stars due to intelligence, invention, and ingenuity.
I couldn’t help but find the whole scenario fascinating and wonder how long it would take them to figure out who and what we were once we left… It reminded me of the beliefs of our ancient ancestors on Aeris… It made me wonder if something similar had happened in our distant past to inspire such similar beliefs…
Regardless of the revolt, the mining process was going so well I’d heard some of the military and
miners were taking advantage of their “deity status” and abusing the natives. A bunch of miners had even been reprimanded for sitting around all day and forcing the native’s to work harder than usual…
Many of the soldiers and miners now felt anger and hostility towards the natives because their revolt had killed close to fifty of our people… The rumors surrounding their mistreatment at the mining sites only got worse as time went on. At one point I even heard they’d stand at the top of the mines and shoot them just for fun… I could only hope it wasn’t true…
The Sirius had now been stationed over X-451 for just over a year. Close to a thousand natives have died and the mining sites have shattered expectations. With the “help” of the natives, the mining teams have already produced over 1,500 tons of chrysos and only estimate the numbers at the end of the next year to be substantially higher.
The project to create more mining sites using only natives had failed but the presence of their manpower turned out to be more than enough to make the 4 year goal a reality…
After another long day of watching Horus injecting the natives, and people coming in and out to remove bodies, I was heading back to my room and I found Sara waiting for me.
I was about to speak and she put her finger up to her lips, signaling me to be quiet.
I nodded and waited for her to give me direction.
She motioned for me to follow her and led me to an elevator. I began to say something as we went up, but she quickly put her finger up to her lips again.
I knew something was finally happening… It took everything in me not to speak. I had been waiting for this day for so long. And knowing it was coming was one of the few things that kept me sane and allowed me get some sleep every now and then.
When the elevator doors opened there was a long empty hallway. We followed it in complete silence for what seemed like a mile and finally came upon a door. She looked at me, smiled, and opened it.
When I walked in I saw at least 50 people standing around talking. They all stopped and stared at us… well actually me.