The Wall by Bill Bowler	Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion

Anala was stirring a pot of bread porridge on a low flame. The twins were scampering around her, laughing and playing. One of them pulled her tail.

“Stop that! Get away from the stove when Mama’s cooking. The flame is hot!”

The twins stepped back and little Sammi asked, “Is it almost ready?”

“Are you hungry, sweetie?”

“Yes, mama.”

“Me, too!” squeaked Molli, the other twin.

“Then you two set the table. It’s almost done.”

The twins ran and tumbled to the cabinet and each fought to be the one to pull open the drawer. Anala reached for the serving bowls, but she felt something, from outside the hut, something familiar. There was a knock at the door.

The twins stopped fighting and grew quiet. Anala put the ladle down, wiped her hands on her apron, and went to the door. The sense of something familiar grew stronger. It was radiating through the door, a familiar scent but mixed with exhaustion, sadness, frustration, doubt. Anala opened the door,

“Nozzy!”

He grinned sheepishly, “Remember me?”

“What are you doing here? I thought you were still on Xenon.”

His face fell. “I hope you don’t mind I’ve come. I ran into Nyra. She told me where you lived. I didn’t want to trouble you. I thought...”

“Come in, come in. I’m just serving supper. We’ll set an extra place. It’s been five years...”

* * *

Chancellor Gladmore sat before the brightly lit mirror as the cosmetologist dusted compact powder on his red cheeks. His Chief of Staff’s face appeared over his shoulder behind him in the mirror.

“What is it, Borkley?”

“You’re on in fifteen minutes.”

“I’m almost ready.”

“The Committee has opened the sealed bids, sir.”

“And?”

“The low bid came from New Earth Eagle.”

“Good.”

“We’ll be going with them. It looks like the space shield project will be moving forward into Phase 2.”

“Excellent.”

“It would give your speech tonight a big boost if you made the announcement. You know, here’s the problem; here’s the solution. Your government at work. People would love it.”

“Good thinking, Borkley. Have them insert the announcement into the text, near the end.”

“Yes, sir,” Borkley’s head disappeared from the mirror. The cosmetologist applied the final touches to the Chancellor’s chin.

In the second floor study, Edgardo settled into his snarkhide easy chair with a glass of 80-proof nogglejuice in hand and turned on the receiver. The Chancellor’s image appeared. He was seated in the Oblong Office, behind his massive crabwood desk, the great double eagle seal of New Earth displayed on the wall behind him.

The camera zoomed in for a close up. Chancellor Gladmore’s handsome visage filled the vidscreen. “My fellow humans...”

Edgardo took a sip of nogglejuice and nodded, thinking, good start, sounds promising.

“There has never been a civilization in history whose ideals and values were more sacred than ours of New Earth. There has never been a people more generous or self-sacrificing. We have fought for good and what we have earned through our struggle, our labor and sacrifice, belongs to us.”

Can’t argue with that, thought Edgardo.

“Let us never forget, even for a moment, our own proud history. Let us not forget what happened when, generations ago, our ancestors arrived, when the first ships from Earth reached this system.

“Here on New Earth, the aliens were hostile. They attacked our forefathers, who had come in peace. After a bloody struggle, humanity prevailed. The forces of good defeated the enemy. The fanatical aliens fought to the last ‘man’, though they weren’t men, of course, and none survived.

“But on Xenon, New Earth’s frozen sister planet, evil took root...”

Edgardo stirred his drink and shifted in his easy chair. Here we go, he thought.

“On Xenon, human beings gave up their natural identity, their birthright, their souls, and commingled with alien. The laws of nature were violated. A misinformed and incompetent government condoned inter-species mingling despite all reasonable and rational objections.

“By means of immoral, if not illegal, reproductive engineering, these unnatural, inhuman couplings eventually produced offspring, genetic mutants born of mixed couples. The current inhabitants, modern Xenites, are an unholy blend of aboriginal and human. They are easy to recognize by their dark fur and long tail...”

Not a pretty picture, thought Edgardo. He’s overdoing it a bit but you have to exaggerate so people get the point. He’s right about not giving up what’s ours now. There’s not enough to go around. That’s where the space shield comes in.

“All peoples,” the Chancellor went on, “have an inalienable right to control their own borders. None can dispute that fact. And control of the borders is the first step towards security. We cannot allow the current situation to continue. Intruders are pouring in. By sheer force of numbers, aliens are consuming our wealth and draining our economy. Scarce resources are being rapidly depleted.

“And that is why I am so pleased and so proud to announce that the space shield program is going forward to Phase 2. I am announcing tonight a new government-industry initiative, an alliance between the public and private sectors. Construction of the space shield will commence in Quadrant IV with New Earth Eagle Co. spearheading the construction effort...”

Edgardo took a deep breath and drained his drink.

* * *

Nozzy had stood in line since dawn at the factory. Poor humans and Xenites alike, hungry, shabbily dressed, full of worry and losing hope, waited in the gray dawn.

The door opened and the contractor came out. He surveyed the line of job seekers and scowled. “No furballs. Humans only.”

The contractor pointed at Nozzy and the other Xenites, “Scram.”

“But...” sputtered Nozzy. “You can’t...”

“Oh yes I can,” growled the contractor. “Get lost. Or there’s going to be trouble.” He brandished a crowbar and held it under Nozzy’s nose.

Nozzy left the line. The other Xenites followed and shuffled out towards the gate.

Nozzy returned to Anala’s and sat slumped at the table, his head in his hands, an empty bowl set before him. The twins were under the table, tugging at his tail. Anala was stirring gruel on the stove. The smell of food cooking made Nozzy’s mouth water. He shook his head slowly. Anala felt his sadness.

“What’s wrong, Nozzy?”

“It isn’t right.”

“What isn’t right?”

“I never meant to move in! I can’t stay here. I’m just a useless burden on you. I have no job, no money. You’re crammed into this little hut and here I am taking up space, sleeping under your roof and taking the food from your mouths!”

“Don’t be silly. You’re no trouble at all. We’re happy to have you with us. You’ve become like a father to the twins,” Anala smiled gently.

Nozzy pushed his bowl away, stood up from the table, and left the room. He pushed his way out the door, strode down the path, and disappeared, heading towards the river. Long after he had left, Anala felt his aura of pain and hopelessness, which lingered in the room like an invisible cloud.

When Nozzy reached the river bank, he saw a noisy crowd of young, unemployed Xenites gathered at the corner, crowding around a fence post. He crossed the street to take a look and elbowed his way through to the front of the crowd.

Nailed to the fence post he saw a poster, and Nozzy read: “Help Wanted — New Earth Eagle Construction Co. — Now Hiring. Xenites Welcome.” The address was a company field office near by. Nozzy followed the crowd straight to the field office.

The foreman came out and shouted for quiet. The jostling crowd of Xenites grew still. The foreman gazed at their ragged clothes and hopeful faces, and grinned, “OK, fellas. The party’s over. You ready to do some real work for a change?”

A shout went up from the crowd.

* * *

Nozzy hung suspended in space, a safety line running from his spacesuit to the chassis of the small ship that had carried the inspection crew to the site. Nozzy enjoyed the extra-vehicular part of the work, the “spacewalks.” The human supervisors stayed on board. They breathed too much, needed too much oxygen to stay for any length of time in space. They quickly used up the oxygen in the tanks when engaged in the labor of close inspection of the space shield seams.

The Xenites, though, with their shallow respiration, could go for hours on a single tank. So the fine inspection work, the minute painstaking patching and fault inspection, which could not be done remotely, fell to the Xenites.

Nozzy had never made so much money before. Credits were piling up in his account. When he returned to New Earth after his six-month hitch on the space shield, he could pay back Anala and get his own place and live like a king. If only Larx and the others could see him now!

* * *

A blast of cold wind swept into the room as Larx opened the door and stepped in. He shook the snow from his coat. In the dim light, he saw his mother lying in bed. He heard the hoarse rattle of her labored breathing. His sister Lorul was giving her a spoonful of tea.

Larx sat wearily at the table and saw a spacemail printout with his name at the top. It was a message from Nozzy. He had found work. He was making good money. And there were plenty of jobs to go around. A big project was under way and the New Earthlings were hiring Xenites to do the work. Nozzy was offering to introduce Larx to the people at the company and help him out until he could get himself established. It wouldn’t take long. It was a done deal, if Larx would just make up his mind and come.

Larx looked around at the shabby walls. He heard his mother coughing beneath the pile of rags. He felt his sister’s sadness. He made up his mind.

Larx found Vinkton at the tavern and laid 5,000 credits on the table. Vinkton counted the notes, then gathered them and put them in his pocket.

“We leave at sunset,” Vinkton spoke in a low voice, “from the ice field south of the village limits. You’ll see my ship. Don’t be late or you... forfeit your investment. We can’t wait for stragglers.”

Larx told his mother and sister at supper, just hours before departure.

“Good,” rasped his mother. “Good. I know you will make something of yourself. We’ll miss you but I’m glad you’re going, Larx.”

His sister wept.

“The humans on New Earth are not bad people,” his mother spoke, and a dim light shone briefly in her clouded eyes. “You’re part human yourself, son. Human blood runs in your veins.

“When humans first arrived from Earth, Xenon welcomed them with ice, howling winds, blizzards, and temperatures well below freezing. The Earthlings suffered. They huddled together in their poor settlements, fighting the cold and wind, and clung precariously to life.

“Our ancestors, in your great-great grandfather’s time, seeing the suffering of the newcomers, came to their aid. We helped the Earthlings build shelter against the cold, brought them meat from local game and fish caught beneath the frozen surfaces of the ice lakes. We showed them where to cut the blocks of ice to melt for water.

“As a result, against all odds, the Earthlings survived their first precarious winters on Xenon and the small human population took root in the frozen soil of their adopted planet.”

Larx’s mother fell back, exhausted by the effort of speaking at such length.

“Are you really leaving us?” his sister asked.

“Don’t worry, Lorul,” he reassured her. “We’ll do just fine. I’ll start transmitting credits back in probably just a day or two.”

Larx kissed his mother good-bye, hugged his little sister, took his small bundle of clothes and personal effects, and left. The door shut behind him and the room was quiet, except for the shallow cough of his mother and the soft sobs of his sister, who couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen.

Larx walked through the falling snow down the main path and left the village through the southern gate. In the open, the wind picked up and howled, the snow swirled, but Larx was oblivious. He made his way to the ice field and, in the swirling snow, saw the silhouette outline of the slender needle-nosed cylinder of Vinkton’s ship.

The others were already there, crowded at the boarding ramp. There were twenty of them, leaving Xenon behind for a brighter future on New Earth. Larx followed them up the ramp and boarded the freighter.

They were packed into a cold, tight cargo hold. Once spaceborne, in the artifical gravity, they took turns standing and lying down to rest, as there wasn’t room for all to lie down at the same time. They slept shallowly and fitfully on the cold, metal floor. There was no furniture in the hold, just bare metal shelves and racks, discarded packing, and trash. They huddled in the hold, shivering beneath their fur, hungry, and full of hope.

Edgardo sat in the snarkhide bucket seat in the tinted cockpit of his Sport Utility Rocket. He was flying parallel to the transparent spacewall that his crews were installing, section by section, across Sector III.

The space shield was made of Diconium. Forty kilometers thick, it was indestructible and almost invisible as light, radar, and sonar all passed through and no ping could detect it. Once the sections of the wall were sealed, beacons would be placed at intervals along the shield, like buoys in rocky shoals, to warn away vessels that strayed or snuck into the Quadrant. Access to New Earth was only possible by passing through the heavily guarded transfer point.

Edgardo slowed his SUR to make visual inspection of the work being done. He hovered near a parked construction vehicle and saw the small dots of his crew hanging in space, inspecting the shield seams, like flies on a windshield.

Edgardo heard a beep from the console. His radar screen showed a fast-moving blip. An object was approaching at high velocity, moving directly towards the center of the newly installed section of the shield. Edgardo looked out through the cockpit window, through the space shield, and saw a huge fireball explode on the far side. The fireball flared and beams of red and yellow light lit the region of empty space for hundreds of kilometers around. The fireball flashed and dissolved into a smoky gray cloud that lingered in space where the object had been.

What the hell was that? Edgardo wondered.

Copyright © 2008 by Bill Bowler