Chapter 18(OB)
Jen looked at the tiny little brick of morphine sadly, the entire day had been spent just making it. It was not even a kilogram!
"12 hours work for such a little thing..." Jen said sadly.
"Without you it would have been even smaller," Seth told her.
"I guess so," Jen agreed with a sigh.
"I will harvest more soon. I have a few other things to do around the farm first," Seth told her.
Jen nodded, composing herself.
Seth started loading the quad bike trailer with gear in preparation for the drive home. Jen looked at the quad bike curiously to take her mind off the tiny harvest, she had never really asked Seth about the quad bike up to this point.
It was a very lightweight vehicle, little of it made of actual metal, a predominantly plastic or carbon fibre polymer machine designed to reduce its own weight. It had a pair of electric motors, one for each pair of wheels, clearly 4 wheel drive, with front steering tyres but fixed rear tyres. It had no gears, the electric motors being built directly into the axels of the wheels, but electric motors didn't really have an optimal rpm so didn't really need gears so much.
A pair of front handle bars steered the vehicle, with the right handle controlling the acceleration by twisting the grip forward. A button could be pressed to change it to reverse, by changing polarity of the electromagnets, pretty basic stuff. It also had frictionless electromagnetic breaks for use when moving, and a friction hand break that Seth only used when it was parked, as he didn't have replacement break pads if the current ones wore out. The hand break was kick operated, the other breaks used handle bar break levers like many bikes had.
Had a few basics like lights and radio, but the radio was never used by Seth, and either didn't work or else was not sophisticated enough to handle the extremely narrow local radio frequencies. The lightweight but tough slightly padded seat could be swung up forwards to access a large but very light weight electric battery, which had to be recharged every day in a battery recharge station in the house.
The tyres looked at least 20 years old, but had been crudely retreaded by some sort of farm tool. The tough lightweight synthetic rubber tyres had originally clearly been very thick to enable this sort of retreading, but were getting thin now. The tyres struggled to get grip sometimes, especially on ice, and Jen planned to add new tyres to the shopping list she was going to write.
The bike had heavy suspension springs, an excellent centre of balance, a rear towing harness, and quite respectable pulling power. It was the perfect farm vehicle for a farmer on a budget and Seth used it constantly.
The trailer was clearly not of the same quality as the quad bike, little more than a pair of tyres and a metal storage tray harnessed to the back of the bike. It looked like local workmanship, crude and basic but functional for what it needed to do. It was just a shame that it had little in the way of suspension, making Jen feel every bump when she rode in the trailer.
"Where was this quad bike manufactured? I don't recognise the design, is it STC?" Jen asked curiously.
"This old thing? No definitely not STC, nothing like that." Seth chuckled.
"Where did you get it?" Jen asked.
"I brought it with me from Terra. In Matlludd Hive there are a lot of enterprising illegal chop shops. They receive stolen vehicles, disassemble them, and rebuild them so the stolen property is no longer recognisable. This probably has parts from at least half a dozen different stolen vehicles," Seth chuckled nostalgically.
"But it's so well made!" Jen exclaimed in wonder.
"Once you have all the machine parts, the rest is easy. The locals can make carbon polymers in home made labs. A lot of those boys are extremely clever, and pass the secrets they learn to their kids and close friends." Seth began.
"Filthy pollution everywhere in Matlludd Hive, high born owned industries just dump all their sludge and waste directly into the slums where I grew up, really disgusting. The drug cooks long ago learned how to turn this industrial sludge into crystal meth to scrape out a living."
"Some of the really clever drug cooks, far cleverer than me, can do the sort of stuff you can do, make amazing variety of chemicals from the local filth. These boys can take filth and turn it into all sorts of precursor chemicals. Sell the chemicals to the local workshops, and they mix the chemicals up to make stuff like polymers, pour it into crude moulds before it sets."
"The local orphan street kids then get paid like a credit a day to file and sand all the rough edges off the plastic and polymer cast shapes, make it look really nice like something from a proper factory."
"This quad bike cost me 2000 credits from one of these local enterprises. Considering the expensive parts were all stolen, it would have cost them probably half this to make, but I like that some locals got work out of it so don't mind too much."
"The radio is rubbish, was rubbish even before they stole it from some stolen tray bike or something. Gets only static out here, even back on Terra it had terrible sound quality on the few stations it got. The lights work fine, breaks are ok."
"The machine parts all come from properly manufactured vehicles, with all the serial codes filed away of course. They work fine. Got a mechanic friend of my Pa to inspect everything before I bought it, to be sure the important stuff all works."
"The carbon fibre polymer chassis has a high tensile strength, whatever that means, and the mechanic said that it would be perfect for 1D8V-44 gravity. I have never had a problem with my good old quad bike, though it took a bit of trespassing to get it from the river to my land before I blasted out the track down to the river," Seth chuckled.
"Why don't they just stick to making meth?" Jen asked.
"No big money in meth, not in Matlludd Hive. Every bugger and his dog knows how to make it now, the secrets of making it leaked out. Even people like me with no idea what they are doing can make meth in Matlludd Hive. So many meth labs that meth costs like one credit a hit. It's a poor man's drug, not very much money in it, a little money, but not much more than a subsistence living." Seth explained.
"So they make more money making other chemicals?" Jen asked.
"Yeah, more money, that's why they do it. But only the cleverer cooks can make it," Seth replied.
Seth had finished loading the quad bike by now, and Jen changed to her backpack air bottle as Seth turned off the hydrolysis unit and other equipment in the shed.
"Did you build this shed yourself?" Jen asked, thinking that it would be a lot of work for just one man.
"No, I got some locals to help. The Plowman brothers of course, and a few other people. Paid them all for their labor. When I first came out here, I only survived by working as hired labor for more established farmers, until I got my own farm established. I didn't even have my own air at first, had to work on other farms to be given bottles of air to keep breathing and get food to eat." Seth explained.
"Is there a lot of work around here?" Jen asked.
"Fuck yeah! Some people don't even buy their own farms, just go from farm to farm as hired hands. This whole area needs more men, good labor is hard to find. That's partly why I need lots of sons," Seth chuckled.
"Why can't Z8C find some work like that?" Jen asked.
"Because he never goes far from his radio unless on Wsuian business. He does occasionally get work in town 1A, but he won't commit any crime, and stops working at the first indication of anything illegal going on around him." Seth said and continued.
"The locals all know that he can't help it, we all feel sorry for the poor blighter. He is popular, the cleanest reputation on the entire planet, just doesn't do anything illegal. He's a likeable person, but crime is everywhere on 1D8V-44, and having him refuse to work when exposed to crime, it's just not worth employing him sometimes."
"The steel mills always have legal work, but Z8C won't leave the town to cross the bay to reach them, because he is obsessed with staying close to his radio to get orders for new slaves. He is a good worker, just too enslaved in his mind to ever take advantage of it. Wsuioo really fucked him up," Seth said sadly.
"If he didn't, you would not have bought me," Jen pointed out.
"True, guess that some good comes out of it, at least good for me," Seth agreed.
Seth and Jen left the shed in the quad bike, locking it behind them, and drove off into the dark.
***...
Jen huddled in front of the electric heater for warmth, wrapped in a blanket, as she typed a draft shopping list on Seth's crappy old desktop computer.
Like most of Seth's stuff, this computer was old, and had seen better days. As far as Jen could see, Seth had bought this computer for one purpose alone, to watch pornographic films.
Golden Throne he had a lot of porn! Over a terabyte of saved porno films! The computer was also clearly full of malware from downloading said films from dodgy information transfer objects, but thankfully had no network connections. Jen had added antivirus software to the shopping list she was typing.
It was raining outside, around 1 degree centigrade from this cold season rain despite being day outside, and Seth was home, alternating between having sex with Jen and pottering around in his man cave workshop room. Jen couldn't do chores when it was this cold, forced to remain in front of the heater wrapped in a blanket whenever Seth's warm anatomy was not inside her.
The heroin was all finished, 100 percent pure, and packaged up in 1 kilogram bags. Seth's scales were already adjusted for local gravity, giving the calculated weight of 1 kilo on Terra, rather than the far smaller objects that weighed a kilo in this gravity.
Jen couldn't safely reach the garden for vegetables, so had very hastily made some bread and was letting it bake in the oven as she kept warm.
Jen was just finished quick saving her current list when all the power in the house suddenly went dead!
The flow of air in Jen's air mask suddenly ceased...
Jen fought down her rising panic, and stopped breathing. She looked around desperately and saw an emergency backpack air bottle in the corner of the room. Every room had at least one full air bottle ready for emergencies like this.
Jen moved calmly to the bottle, activated the air hose, and slipped the air mask over her face. She breathed in the air desperately, heart pounding with adrenaline.
"Jen!" Seth's voice shouted urgently.
"I'm ok! I'm using an air bottle!" Jen shouted back reassuringly.
Seth quickly joined her as she put on the back pack, he was wearing a backpack bottle of his own.
"What happened?" Jen asked.
"I was afraid of this when you used the heater and the oven at the same time. All the storage batteries are drained, no power left," Seth said gravely.
Jen frantically turned off the heater, and rushed to the kitchen to turn off the oven. She then turned off everything else she could think of, just for good measure. Some of the high efficiency ceiling lights glowed slightly as Seth turned off the machines in the hydrolysis room.
Jen gazed at the lights hopefully.
"Don't get your hopes up. The solar panels all over the farm are still getting some light through the rain outside, but only a few watts at most. We can't run the hydrolysis room on just a few watts." Seth said gravely, and turned off every light and other thing in the entire house.
"What do we do?" Jen asked fearfully.
"We wait it out until we get a few hours of direct sunlight on the solar farms. The backup quad bike battery is fully charged, when the rain stops we will go out to the air bottle storage shed with some food and water, bring the blanket too, and wait till we get a sunny day before we go home." Seth said grimly.
Jen looked out the window. Outside the rain was so thick that it was almost dark as night! She was amazed that the solar farms even found a few watts worth of photons in this!
"I'm so sorry I did this husband," Jen apologised wretchedly.
"You didn't know it would happen. It's the hydrolysis room that really sucks in the watts. Having two people is doubling the power load, the infant oxygen tent didn't help... Shit, need to have some contingency for what to do with that tent if this happens when we have a kid," Seth said apprehensively.
Jen shuddered with horror at the thought of this happening when they had a baby!
"I will buy a lot more batteries and panels this wet season, enough for the extra load. And have emergency tanks in the house to last the baby many days in the tent," Seth promised.
Jen nodded.
Jen was shivering violently, and wrapped the blanket tightly around her body for warmth. It was terribly cold!
"Here girl, snuggle against me for warmth," Seth said, wrapping her up in a cuddle.
Jen snuggled gratefully against Seth. Her body was very pretty, but very impractical in a survival situation. She was venting out heat faster than she could make it, her slender hairless body acting like a radiator for losing heat! Even the terrible cold room had not been as cold as this, she would die without Seth keeping her warm!
"I'm so cold," Jen said with terrible shivering, "I will die without you keeping me warm".
"I know, just snuggle with me for the rest of the day. This rain will stop during the night. At least it's not the wet season, the wet season never stops raining!" Seth said.
"How will we survive the wet season?" Jen asked fearfully.
"It's not cold during the wet season, just hot and humid. And the rain is constant but doesn't block out the light as much, so the panels get more power than now," Seth explained.
"I think that I will be giving birth not long after the wet season. Will we have time to get the place ready for a baby?" Jen asked.
"Yeah, plenty of time. Just make sure that we buy everything we need when the rivers are high. With your highly pure heroin we will do all right this year, be able to afford a bit extra." Seth reassured her.
There was little else for it but to huddle together for warmth under the blanket and wait. The house had enough full bottles to last them till the rain stopped, so they just waited.
***...
"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with R," Seth said.
"Rain?" Jen suggested.
"Yep," Seth confirmed.
"Ok, I spy with my little eye, something beginning with P," Jen said.
"Porn?" Seth suggested.
"Yeah," Jen giggled.
"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with J," Seth said.
"Jen?" Jen asked.
"Yup," Seth chuckled.
The rainy day games had been going on for hours, but still the rain hadn't stopped. Jen was completely reliant on Seth's body heat to keep her warm, and was steadily maintaining her body temperature with his help. They occasionally changed their air bottles, but otherwise didn't move.
"What games did you play back on Wsuioo?" Seth asked, tiring of I Spy.
"Games? You mean like this?" Jen asked.
"Yeah, what did you do for fun?" Seth asked.
"I read books about marriage, I loved reading and imagining that I had a husband," Jen said with a nostalgic smile.
"No games?" Seth asked.
"Only in education, never for fun. We were not allowed to do such things, only reading and chores were allowed in the free time periods. But we did enjoy watching some of the other lines play games," Jen said bittersweetly.
"I'm so sorry to hear that Jen, that must have been a miserable childhood," Seth said with feeling.
"It was a very strict upbringing, very very strict, but it needed to be strict, there was far too much to learn before our 18th birthday, too much unless all our time was devoted to learning and training," Jen said bittersweetly.
"Do you have any happy memories of growing up?" Seth asked.
"I do, I loved my books on marriage, they made me so happy," Jen said with a warm smile.
"These the books you want to buy?" Seth asked.
"Yes husband, I would like that," Jen confirmed.
"Tell me about them, your favourite bits," Seth told her.
"Yes husband. My favourite book is called "making the ideal chauvinistic marriage", and taught me so much about marriage. For a 679 line child, there is no greater joy than thinking about being a wife, it's what we most want to be, every fibre of our beings wants more than anything to get married and be a wife," Jen said with rapt pleasure.
"Making the ideal chauvinistic marriage?" Seth asked distastefully.
"Yes husband, it's my favourite book," Jen confirmed.
"Chauvinist? Like those men who put broken bottles in their wive's faces?" Seth asked sounding worried.
"Yes husband, in a chauvinistic marriage the husband can do this, but usually only if the wife deserves it," Jen confirmed humbly.
"What could a wife possibly do to deserve a broken bottle in the face?!" Seth asked incredulously.
"Perhaps she spoke in an annoying tone of voice, or gave her husband a look that lacked proper wifely humility? Maybe even something worse! Maybe she burnt the food when cooking!" Jen suggested, shuddering at the thought of a wife doing such things!
"What the fuck Jen! Are you trying to make a joke?!" Seth shouted angrily.
Jen squeaked in dismay at angering her husband and fearfully said, "I am not trying to make a joke husband. The book teaches this."
"You read this book as a little girl?" Seth asked.
"Since I was 7 years old. Have I displeased you husband?" Jen asked fearfully.
"And it tells you that you deserve to be glassed for burning the roast?" Seth asked sounding horrified.
"That is not the main topic of the book, but yes it tells this," Jen confirmed.
"What is the main topic?" Seth asked.
"The main topic is making the ideal marriage. It gave me such a wonderful feeling to read, dreaming of being married," Jen explained with humility.
"What does it tell you to do as a wife?" Seth asked.
"It tells me to be pleasing at all times to my husband, to seek his pleasure as my highest goal, to be humble and completely obedient no matter what. The three pillars of a wife's duty are humble obedience, complete sexual receptivity, and demure quietness." Jen explained.
"It tells you to be a slave you mean..." Seth said grimly.
"I'm so sorry for upsetting you Seth," Jen said sympathetically.
Seth sighed.
"I'm not upset at YOU, I'm angry at the people who brain washed you with these things. I have half a mind to forbid you from buying these books," Seth said with quiet holy anger.
"Yes husband," Jen said, feeling terrible disappointment.
"Oh no, you ARE buying them. But "I" am going to read them first before I let you read them to our kids. I don't mind you teaching our kids chemistry, but you will NOT teach our daughter that it's ok for their future husbands to glass them! Do I make myself clear?" Seth demanded.
"Yes husband, very clear. I will ask permission first before teaching our children," Jen agreed with her usual subservience.
"I'm just glad that you married ME and not some cowardly wife beater. This might not have gone so well if you had been bought by some of the scum bags that exist in the galaxy. I shudder to think what your life might have been like," Seth said seriously.
"I don't want a bottle in my face. None of the 679 line like being "glassed" as you put it. But we were prepared for it possibly happening. I think that you won't glass me, and I am very thankful for this, but I will still love you even if you do," Jen said tenderly.
"If all 679 line wives are as gentle and well natured as you, then NONE of them EVER "deserve" any type of violence against them from their husbands." Seth insisted.
"All are like me in gentleness and temperament," Jen confirmed.
"Then none of them deserve unkind treatment. Heck even the really feral hive girls I grew up with don't deserve to have their men put fucking bottles in their faces! Even the really nasty feral girls don't deserve THAT shit done to them! No way in hell a devoted 679 line wife deserves it from the husband she bends over backwards to please!" Seth said passionately.
"You will never hit me?" Jen asked calmly.
"What, domestic violence hit? No I won't do that. But maybe I would spank you, like during sex or something? I'm not really into that, but that's the only time I would hit you," Seth said reassuringly.
"Anything you like," Jen purred provocatively.
"Aren't you close to freezing to death?" Seth asked.
"Yes, I am very VERY cold," Jen admitted.
"Then why so frisky with me at a time like this?" Seth asked.
"I am incapable of shutting it off, even if I am in danger. I literally can't refuse sex with you, I can't resist you, you can't imagine how much you turn me on," Jen admitted.
"Well, you're giving me the erection from hell, but I'm afraid that you will freeze if we try it." Seth insisted.
"May I give you a hand job Seth?" Jen suggested.
"Oh very well, if you insist," Seth chuckled.
Jen giggled through her chattering teeth.
***...
By the time it was night time, Jen felt that she knew a little bit more about Seth's past.
The hand job had made such a mess under the blanket that Seth had not wanted any more sex that day. They had instead filled in a lot of the time talking about all sorts of things. Jen still didn't have anything like a full picture, but did have some tantalising snippets of information about his life now.
Jen had spoken about her own childhood, but it had made Seth get so angry, angry at Wsuioo for the childhood Jen had had. Descriptions about being locked in a refrigerator, the cold room, all night long for "giving an officer a funny look", that had especially angered him. Being locked in chastity belts since the day she was born had likewise upset Seth.
Seth's childhood had clearly been hard at times, but compared to Jen's childhood, it had been a paradise. Maybe Jen had grown up breathing only purified heavily filtered air, rather than lung damaging smog. Maybe Jen's drinking water had been distilled to complete purity, rather than barely drinkable grimy water from cruddy old pipes. Maybe Jen had been too expensive to get any delay in meals that might effect her physical development growing up, rather than being unsure about her next meal. But Jen had never really had FUN growing up.
Wsuioo did not like random variations in their export lines, did not like their infant products to have the freedom and creativity to just play games like a child would play, this would cause limited development as individuals after all. The children not destined for export had played games, oh such games! The child 1 line worker models were even allowed to dye their hair different colours if they liked!
The 1 line worker models were the bottom of the heap, the scum, the proles. As long as they worked themselves to death in slave labor, no one really cared what they did. They almost never lived long past 60, got the worst food and were killed the most freely, but they were allowed to have fun to a certain degree. When they grew up the 1 line worker models rooted like rabbits!
Jen had had only strict study and training, books and education. She had never played fun games, never raised her voice, never been boisterous. Just obedient and quiet or else she ended up in the cold room. Stern and severe discipline, motivated to excel in excessive amounts of study by being too afraid to fail. It hadn't been a true childhood at all, just a desperate struggle to not be locked in the cold room! A childhood of constant terrible fear of punishment.
The chastity belt really was a metaphor for her entire life, before she had married Seth, all fun and individuality had been locked away out of her reach. In some ways she had only been ALLOWED to be a person after she became Seth's wife, she hadn't even had a NAME before then!
Seth had played GAMES! Growing up as a child he had had FUN! It hadn't been ideal, but at least he had had an actual childhood, had been a PERSON since the day he was BORN! It had cost him the health of his lungs, but Jen would have gladly traded lives with him growing up, would have LOVED to just be a kid of a drug dealer living free in a putrid slum. It would have been a far kinder childhood.
Jen didn't resent Seth for having a better childhood. In fact, Jen was grateful that he had, grateful that he could share with her what a fun childhood might be like. Jen loved Seth anyway, but she loved him even more for sharing this insight into what a proper childhood was like.
Jen felt dirty just having the squalor of Matlludd Hive described to her. Seth described entire canal systems, DEEP canals, OVERFLOWING with sewerage and toxic sludge! He described air so dirty that if you washed a white sheet and hung it up to dry, the sheet would be BROWN by the time it dried, just from the AIR! Even though literally exporting crap by the megaton, the hives STILL had so much sewerage that they were nearly drowning in it!
The squalor and poverty Seth described was hard to even visualise in her mind. How could anything on HOLY Terra be so filthy! To a clean freak like Jen it was distressing to even imagine so much dirt!
Seth described the vast webs of organised crime that even allowed these people to survive, described how few beside drug dealers made enough money for one of their sons to ever escape to a better life on 1D8V-44, described all the loan sharks his father would have had to borrow money from to give Seth this opportunity.
Whoever Seth's father was, he had clearly loved Seth very much to sacrifice so much to give him this better life. Seth had tried to send money back he said, but had never gotten any reply mail to know if it even arrived, and had eventually gotten so discouraged that he stopped trying to send money. He was completely cut off from his family forever, completely alone.
Seth's older brother, Toby Renwick, had stayed behind on Terra, but Jen didn't know much about him beyond Seth's happy childhood memories of his older brother. Seth seemed reluctant to talk about his brother during Seth's final years on Terra, suggesting maybe a falling out or something.
Seth was clearly extremely lucky, one of the incredibly rare success stories who ever got to escape from the squalor of Terra's putrid hives. His father was an uncommonly successful career criminal, who managed to claw enough profit from selling heroin to gainfully employed imperial adepts to secure a loan for the thousands of credits Seth would have needed to buy this land, buy his quad bike, and get to 1D8V-44.
Seth had clearly grown up around heroin, with him and his brother being assigned chores that included cutting and bagging precise weights of heroin when they were still children. He could tell the purity of heroin often by just looking at it, a drug dealer's kid through and through.
Seth had never used the stuff, his father had warned him to never ever use it outside of first aid situations such as when Jen had been in terrible pain from muscle damage. The family apparently had a motto that said "the Renwick's sell drugs not use them". Seth was completely clean apart from alcohol on special occasions, never used any recreational substance.
Seth had so many happy memories that he shared, memories of running splashing through the puddles of sewerage playing chasing games with other children. Memories of scratching their own graffiti onto the heavily graffitied walls of the endless hive slums, writing silly things that made each other laugh. Memories of having pretend gang wars holding their index fingers out like pretend guns.
It sounded like so much fun! The hive had apparently been completely infested with children from teenage hive scum girls getting lots of unwanted pregnancies from having unprotected sex with their boyfriends. Just children EVERYWHERE by the sound of it.
Jen tried to imagine a massive hive completely choked with children the way Seth described. It must have been a fun childhood surrounded by so many other children to play with.
The thought of all these children growing up to have lots of children of their own was a bit scary to be honest. It sounded desperately overpopulated already! It would be better if a lot of them were sent to places like 1D8V-44 that actually needed more people.
Jen was still bitterly cold, kept alive only by Seth's body heat. Women with this sort of extremely pretty body shape were just not meant for these sort of low temperatures without proper arctic winter clothes. Her surface area to volume ratio was just too high, she felt like a human radiator!
"How are you feeling Jen?" Seth asked her.
"Freezing, absolutely freezing," Jen said through chattering teeth.
"The rain will stop soon, the humidity can't maintain itself in the air once the air temperature drops a bit below zero. The sun has gone down now, it won't take long now," Seth reassured her.
To be continued