Chapter 29: Mike Gives a History Lesson.
They landed the Nova at Dracula Base in the Transylvania system and disembarked from the ship for a meeting over some real food in the rec hall. Kalli had heard that Dracula Base was pretty much self-sufficient and made most of its own food, hence the availability of tasty meals that weren't readily available on most pirate bases. Certainly, food could be captured and transported in from elsewhere, but storage was always a problem on the asteroid bases. They didn't really have enough space available to store a large variety of bulky foods when they could survive off compact rations.
There was a large kettle of hot vegetable soup to one side of the room kept warm for anyone around who was hungry, and a stack of bowls and sporks beside it. Kalli gratefully helped herself to a bowl.
"Greetings," said Warren as they entered the rec hall. "It is good that you have returned successful in your mission."
"Great to be back, too," Mike said. "We've got some business to discuss. Over food."
"I will share with you my carrots if you so desire."
"Thanks," Talia said. "I'm feeling slightly vegetarian-inclined lately."
Jimmy Dane came up to them. "There you are. You should see this fleet. It's beautiful! I want a snazzy new Nova for myself."
"After we eat," Mike said. He sat down with a bowl of hot vegetable soup. "Jake, Warren, Jimmy, this is Anderos Velarh and Derek Paskins. Anderos and Derek, these are Jacob Walker, James Dane, Warren Wright. Great, we're all friends now? Let's eat."
They sat down around the long table and began to eat heartily. "So what's this interesting business you said has come up?" Jake asked.
"It seems that the Chancellor is a psyker," Anderos said. "And appears to have some sort of agenda that we are as yet uncertain of the details of."
"They made quite an effort at preventing us from leaving the place," Kalli said. "Someone even took our supplies to give us further trouble. I doubt we would have made it without the Nova. We had to blast our way out of the docking bay doors, since they weren't polite to open them for us."
"And that was after we defeated a small armored infantry division," Derek commented dryly. "When four guys can fight off a hundred guys and win, you know the Military sucks."
"Yes, I imagine you know exactly how much they suck, don't you," Mike said with a smirk. "Welcome to the other side. I'm not really sure if it's the dark side or the light side or whatever, though."
"Chocolate side," Kalli said, holding aloft a cookie.
"Yes," Mike drawled. "We're dark and sweet and just melt in your mouth."
Jake giggled. "Sounds like you had a good time with your suicidal insanity. Anything else interesting happen?"
They kindly filled the others in on any other interesting details of their trip, up to and including their lunch of roast Lion. Then they went off to sleep and various other distractions which do not need elaboration at this time.
Mike said to Kalli, "Congratulations. You've survived your first few weeks as a Death Dancer. You've probably got a long and interesting life ahead of you now." He winked.
"Heh," Kalli said. "I've completely lost track of time. In some ways it feels like it was yesterday, and in others it's like an eternity ago."
"They say there is no time in space," Mike said. "When you're measuring time between your last meal and your next, from one base that might let you land to another... heh. To be sure, I've been hunted by the Military and the bounty hunters before. Generally I've managed to stay on good enough terms that I can land on places like Tahiti and such. Beautiful place, we ought to go there sometime. If we have to take it over ourselves."
Kalli chuckled softly. "Does the killing ever really end?"
Mike shrugged. "In a way, the Death Dancers are the opposite of the Primos. The Primos bring life, and we bring death. An endless cycle, and a necessary one for the survival and well-being of the universe. The Primos have already overrun their own planets and are trying to spread to other worlds, but where else is there for them to go? They head to the fringe worlds and try to take over places like Hamilton, or to terraform planets to make new places for them to live or grow food, like what they did on Mars and what they're trying to do on planet Harris."
"So it's a like a food chain, really," Kalli said. "With the predators keeping the prey population in check?"
"In a way," Mike said. "But at this point, you could kill all the Primos you want until you drop of old age, and will never put a dent in their population. It's getting out of hand. The Empire is on the verge of collapse from the inside out, without any help from us, because of the way the Primo religion is consuming the galaxy."
"I never really thought of it that way," Kalli said. "Wow. I figured that any religion that based itself around fertility would have some check or balance to stop it from getting out of control, or it would have collapsed by now."
"Like Derek was saying earlier, most of the Primo children these days are having to join the Military out of necessity and usually dying quickly," Mike went on. "A lot of them are leaving the Primo planets and becoming pirates, and usually celibate or homosexual. Gaytopia and Lesbia are thriving due to homosexuality being outlawed on Primo planets. It's surprising the number of people who were raised Primo who reach the age of thirty who are no longer Primos."
"How did it ever get started?" Kalli asked. "Didn't they stop to consider the long-term problems it might have?"
"Possibly," Mike said. "It started, obviously, on planet Primus, the first Terran colony. I would imagine that the original colony was only a few hundred or a few thousand people, so producing as many children as possibly would have only been a good thing at the time. They just stuck with it far longer than was reasonably necessary, I think."
"So how did the Death Dancers get started, then?" Kalli wondered. "You said once that they originated from Primos."
Mike nodded. "It started with the Rabbits."
"The Rabbits?"
"Yep. The first Death Dancers were killer bunnies. You see, the Rabbits on planet Sydney had decided to adopt the Primo religion. That turned out to be a bad idea, which they realized rather quickly. The excess Rabbits decided to form the Dancers on the Edge of Death and vowed to produce no more children. Most Death Dancer Rabbits are celibate, or at least gay."
"So there's a bunch of gay bunnies in the Death Dancers."
Mike laughed. "Yeah, something like that."
"And Jake-"
"-is probably off in a gay orgy about now."
"Thought so."
