Chapter 6Forge
(Subject Wah) was (action crying). (Subject Wah) (state did not) (action understand) (information why).
(Subject Wah) was (age recently born). (Subject Wah) (state lacked) (action comprehension of) (subject most things).
The tiny infant didn't know why she was crying, something was uncomfortable but she lacked the cognitive maturity to formalise the specific nature of her discomfort. At her current age Subject Wah was even more mindless than the servitor who carried her everywhere.
Subject Wah felt pain, the dust and pollution hurt her eyes and skin and respiratory system, her nostrils and mouth burned slightly from the filth she was forced to breathe. She cried often in response to the pain, but she didn't know that this was why she cried. Her simple infant brain simply reacted to stimulus instinctively without understanding or comprehension of why she cried. She just cried.
Her naked infant body was filthy with old birth wax carpeted over with thick slightly acidic dust and filth, with urine and faeces adding to this filth, all unwashed and caked dry. Only her eyes were clean, and only clean from all her tears. She was as filthy as it was possible for a newborn baby to be.
Subject Wah felt the warmth of the unnamed creature who she had always known, Subject Wah was pressed to the warm filthy soft comforting flesh of this larger creature. Something hard and slightly cold held Subject Wah against the comforting warm flesh, the hard thing was uncomfortable but gentle, not painful.
"Burt-tatata-tatatata-tatata…"
The creature was making a rapid clicking noise, addressing Subject Wah, curious about her crying.
Subject Wah kept crying despite this familiar sound.
Subject Wah felt movement, something soft and comforting (and absolutely filthy) touched her crying mouth. Her lips closed over the comforting soft thing and she instinctively sucked. At first she tasted only filthy bitter dust and sour acidic chemical pollution, but then she tasted the blissful sweetness of milk slowly filling her mouth from the soft thing.
Subject Wah stopped crying and quietly suckled on the sweet milk, gradually filling her stomach and making her sleepy until she fell asleep with her mouth still suckling even as she peacefully slept.
For a while Subject Wah slept peacefully, then suddenly she awoke to terrible pain all over!
Subject Wah bawled and screamed as agony filled her tiny body!
"What are you DOING?!"
The pain suddenly stopped!
"Burt-tatatatata-tatatatatata…"
"You CANNOT recharge that baby with a power cable!"
"Burt-tatatata-tatata-tatatatata…"
"Because it doesn't have any bionics for Cog's sake! Weak flesh can NOT be recharged with electricity! You are going to electrocute that baby!"
"Burt-tatata-tatatata-tatata…"
"Ignore the syntax errors and LISTEN to me, Wah is a BABY and babies die REALLY easily if you plug them into a power cable you stupid servitor!"
"Burt-tatata-tatatata…"
"Is that all you have to say?!"
"Burt-tatata-tatatatata-tatata…"
"Give me that baby!"
"Burt-tatata…"
Crash! Bang! Clang! Smash!
Subject Wah felt a lot of movement, she kept crying from the residual pain.
"Ouch! Stop hitting me!"
"Burt-tatatatata…"
"Please don't kill me!"
"Burt-tatata-tatatata-tatata…"
"You can keep Wah! I promise! Let go of my neck!"
"Burt-tatata-tatata…"
"Thank you…"
"Burt-tatata-tatatata…"
The creature holding Subject Wah became still, the movement became soft and soothing. Subject Wah gradually stopped crying.
Subject Wah nuzzled against the soft skin and the soft thing was put to her mouth. Subject Wah suckled hungrily and soon forgot about her pain and distress.
…
Light years away tall stalks of genetically modified high yield soya plants and corn plants rustled in the howling winds. The view from horizon to horizon was nothing but fields of soya and corn, the flat ground interrupted only by huge orthogonal drainage canals burning with hissing chem residues.
The bright yellow sun above was stained orange by the thick haze of phosphorus rich nitrate fertiliser dust that was periodically dumped over the crops by huge snub nosed fertiliser duster aircraft. Loud pest thopters flew overhead with the juddering noise of their huge spinning copter blades, spraying the air with so much burning pesticide chemicals that the very air was a toxic mist of chemical death to animal life of any kind.
The soil was barren and dead, the natural fungal colonies that should be present in the soil all annihilated by over zealous use of copious anti fungal spray dustings to protect the crops from any possible fungal disease. Only the fertiliser dustings and nutritional chem drops gave the plants enough to sustain them in this barren hellish soil, and the quality of the crops suffered for this abuse.
Huge combine harvesting machines hundreds of metres across lumbered over the dead soil on huge chem stained tracks, reaping in mature soya beans and corn grains by the billions, filling their grimy grain bins with pallid grains and withered beans. The quality of this harvest was abysmal, but the quantity was sufficiently enormous to maintain food production quotas.
This hellish planet was an Agri World, a planet polluted by so much chemical abuse that only these two crops of genetically modified corn and soybeans could grow here, a planet where humans outside without gas masks and hazmat suits would be dead in minutes. It was hellish, it was horrible, it was absolutely essential.
Food production quantity was the only thing that mattered here, the maximum quantity of food produced per square metre of land was the only consideration. The quality of the food could be abysmal, but so long as it remained edible in the strictest sense of the word then the Imperium didn't care. The starving masses of humanity were too hungry to be bothered by the niceties of food quality, they merely needed enough food (no matter how horrible) to get them through another gruelling day of hard labor in the factories and workplaces of their stinking hive cities.
This hellish planet was not only an Agri World, it was the LAST Agri World in this entire sector. There had been others, newer and nicer, with far better quality produce, but then the orks had come to the sector in a green tide. One by one the other Agri Worlds had been attacked and taken by the green skin filth, the sector had begun to starve.
Now this one remaining Agri World was hopelessly inadequate to feed an entire sector all on its own. There was not enough fertiliser in existence to grow the corn and soya fast enough on the land available to feed an entire sector of many hungry planets.
Nevertheless the wretched inhabitants of this chem drenched Agri World tried their best to meet this impossible demand for food. Every worker was on mandatory overtime, every measure was taken to eke out just that little bit more food from the dead barren soil of this poisonous hell hole.
Out of all the planets in this sector the inhabitants of the local sector Forge World naturally got first priority for this meagre food distribution. The Forge World was the only hope the sector had of producing enough weapons and ammunition to repel the orks from the sector, the forge world alone had full bellies as everyone else slowly starved.
On the Forge World the servitor with the baby was blissfully unaware that her stolen crate of food had almost certainly caused some distant hive world inhabitants to starve to death when the Forge World requisitioned a replacement crate, but such was the grim reality in the 41st millennium…
…