The Dome | Part 2 of 3
This is the second installment in the serialized story of The Dome. To read the first installment go here:
The windows of the transport had been blacked out and they were told that this was to shield them from harmful rays, but the glass on the top of the transport had been left clear. He stared up through the glass roof into the pale atmosphere and wondered if the world outside that he couldn’t see was as formless and void as the sky above. It must be.
That day at work he did the same thing he did every day. He went through the motions. He ignored the arthritic pain growing in his joints and his corpus callosum. He stopped to eat a bowl of gamma gruel when it was time to eat a bowl of gamma gruel. He thought about the Dome.
On the transport back, he could just make out a skiff of warmth as the last light of the evening sun curved across the golden hemisphere peeking over the horizon.
"What do you think it is?" He asked out loud.
"The sky," his cohab replied without looking up from where his forehead pressed on the seatback in front of him.
"The Dome. What do you think it is?"
"Nothing worth putting any thought into."
"Richard thought it might be ..."
"It's nikramancy," interrupted the hunched up man in the seat in front of them. As best he could he turned his wizened face around to join their discussion.
"What's nicromancy?"
"Like ghosts and spooks. Dead people."
"Sound like tall tales and silliness to me," the cohab opined, now seated upright.
"I been indentured here since you were disappointin' ye first girlfriend,” the old man said as he turned his head more towards the cohab. “I'm telling you they do nikramancy over there."
"If it's bad like that why don't they just tear it down?" he asked.
"Looks too good for marketing materials. Not e'eryone joins up out of destitution. Some folks actually have a Hope for Life among the Stars. Ancient architecture like 'at go a long way with a certain type to associate the Company with the glories o’ the past."
"Do any of the hopefuls ever make it? To the dome, I mean."
"The Company don't ever let 'em get that far."
"Why?"
"The Dome is a way of spellin' the sky down to the earth. Whoever built it was trying to do rocketry but in reverse. Bring the stars down among 'emselves instead of riding a tower of fire up here like the rest of us. It's dangerous."
His cohab interrupted the old man:
"Hold on a minute. How long you say you been here?"
"Three contracted indenture cycles, the penitentiary hitch that brought me here in the first place, and one local turn of rehab leave in between where I was on light duty at the outpost. Hell, at this point I got grankids I ain't even met drawing off of my annuity."
"Why don't you ship out and enjoy your retirement? Spend a little time with your family before the end?" The cohab asked.
The old man laughed until his cackling devolved into harsh cough, which brought up a lump of phlegm that he spitooned onto the floor of the transport. He wheezed as he got himself back under control and explained the system:
"As long as ye workin' then th' annuity goes through nice and regular. Soon as ye ready to go home though, they bring ye in for what they call 'exit interview.' But they ain't there to ask questions. They show you a bill of all the gamma you ate, the cost of runnin' ye hab three years, the cost of freight to get ye back home. Hell boys, ye rackin' up bills right now for transport fuel."
"Repatriation's covered by the contract," his cohab protested.
The old man held up a finger and smiled.
"Station to station freight is covered. How ye gonna get from here," he looked up and made rocket sound as he lifted his finger skyward. "To up there?"
The two younger men were speechless.
"A man can leave whenever he wants," the old man continued. "But then ye family gotta pay back all the money they been gettin'. It shoulda been for ye room and board but they spen’ it on theirs. That makes it a loan and not wages —that means there’s the us'ry on it. Then ye gotta pay the rest of ye bill, plus the us'ry goin' on that." The old man turned back around before leaning his head back into his seat and saying "Indenturin's a one way ride boys."
The three of them sat in silence for some time. He thought of the old video of his family that he had watched that morning. If this old man were to be believed, that was the last he’d ever hear from them. He wouldn't believe it. He broke the quiet:
"If it's as hard to get out as you say it is," he said to the seatback in front of him, "then why are you the only old timer I ever see around here?”
The old man turned around and put his knees on his seat and his elbows on the backrest to stabilize himself as he leaned in. He set his wrinkled eyes and smirked.
"You strike me as the type of man who's gonna find out on his own soon enough."
This story is the second installment in a serial.
The other chunks can be found here:
Thank you to Nikita Soloviov for the photo.