It took us about a day to reach the Colony—or, to be more accurate from an outsider's perspective, a primitive human tribe. The fact that this journey took so long was certainly influenced by Kael sometimes forgetting and confusing the way while navigating this complex jungle.
The Colony was situated inside a gigantic cave. It looked as if the side of the mountain had collapsed, cut out like a horizontal slice of cake. On the slopes leading up to the cave entrance, wooden planks were placed over the rocks to form makeshift stairs. The lighting, which hung down from the cave ceiling resembling Chinese lanterns, sufficiently illuminated the inside of the cavern, despite it being midday. As we approached the colony, the number of people around us increased.
There were people roaming the swamps outside the colony. These people's hair and heads were tangled. Like primitive humans, they had chosen animal furs and hides as their clothing. The people wading through this swamp were tending to a plant that grew there. Some were watering the plant, some were pulling weeds, and others were digging up the dirt with shovels to extract this root vegetable from the soil. Everyone, absolutely everyone, was covered in mud. The root vegetable that emerged after this great struggle with the mud was no bigger than a carrot. Yet, its exterior leaves were quite large and magnificent.
Before we arrived at the colony, Kael had insisted on taping my mouth shut. Since I had already removed my official uniform, I was half-naked, wearing only a piece of fur. He had even done his best to smear my underwear with some mud to conceal its high-quality nature.
At first, people looked amused when they saw Kael. They seemed about to point at the boy and laugh. But before anyone could laugh, Kael struck the high-tech electric staff in his hand twice. As electricity crackled around the staff, the people stared in awe. They instantly realized that Kael was bringing something new to the settlement—which I shall now call a village instead of a colony.
In fact, when they glanced behind him and saw me, bound, their astonishment doubled. Some people approached Kael and asked, "What is this, Kael?"
"Stay away! I need to take this man to Jack!" Kael showed them his electric staff to keep the people at bay.
"He's a foreigner!" one of the women exclaimed. "He's definitely not from around here."
"Did he come from the outside?"
"Kael! Did you bring someone from the outside?"
"Answer us, boy!"
"Shut your mouths!" Kael shouted as he started walking up the steps. "I need to see Elder Jack!"
Just then, a mud-covered man stepped out and walked angrily toward Kael. He even grabbed me by the shoulder to stop my movement: "You can't bring a foreigner here without the Engineers' permission!" he was about to yell when another hand appeared on Kael's shoulder.
"Alright, gentlemen... Let's calm down." Then that hand moved toward the staff Kael was holding. "Why should we show our anger instead of our hospitality to this visitor from the outside?"
This man was tall, with long, sticky blonde hair. His green eyes looked somewhat strange. Was I mistaken, or did this man have the eyes of a substance abuser? His demeanor and thin, calm voice were unsettling.
The man was wearing a white t-shirt under which he had short shorts. He seemed to be the only modern-looking person here. If it weren't for the long, shredded, vermicelli-like hair on his legs and chest, I might have even considered this man a Republic citizen.
The man who was holding my shoulder suddenly fell to his knees. "Engineer Hank! We are so sorry! Please forgive us if we disturbed you!"
It was clear from this man's pleading manner that something was amiss here. As someone who had lived in the underworld for years, I could feel it in my bones. But I needed to be patient a little longer to understand what was going on.
Kael looked at the man named Hank with fearful eyes. "Kael..." the man began to speak. I cannot express how much that calm tone bothered me. It was the voice of a man who thought highly of himself. "...I'll handle this from here." Kael reluctantly had to let go of the staff.
"But..."
"It's alright, Kael. The engineers will take care of this guest."
"Please, let me explain..."
Hank leaned close to Kael's ear and whispered, "Are you going to shut your mouth, or should I shut it for you?" The boy's descent down the stairs, head bowed in frustration, troubled me. As he walked down, he glanced at me sideways and said:
"See you, Aldo."
"Now!" the engineer said, pulling a knife from his shorts pocket. The knife was made of an animal tooth combined with a few scraps of cloth. It was horrifying that they were still using such a primitive tool. He approached me with the knife and cut the ropes binding my wrists. "Let's welcome our guest in a manner befitting our colony. Binding his hands and arms is quite unnecessary, isn't it, friend? After all, you look unarmed and weak."
I pulled the tape from my mouth and said, "I have come here in peace."
"Wonderful... I am Engineer Hank. Here, as an engineer..."
"I know roughly what engineers do," I said. My confident manner of speaking seemed to bother everyone else. "At least, I know what they are supposed to do."
"In that case... please follow me. And you can tell me your story as we walk," he said, gesturing to the end of the stairs with his hand.
As his finger pointed the way, the fabric on his arm slipped slightly. Beneath it, a pale, scratched skin was revealed. The man's arms were covered in bruises; in some places, the skin was pierced and blackened. This sight whispered not a single possibility, but several dark ones.
Perhaps it was from a serious work accident... perhaps a fight. Or—worse—something other than blood circulated in the man's veins.
"God," I thought to myself, as my steps echoed on the wooden planks. "I hope not all the engineers in the colony are like this."
As I climbed the wooden and stone stairs and threw myself into the entrance of the cave, I experienced a great shock. It was like being in the back alleys of CLAUDIS V. If poverty, helplessness, and hunger were a painting, it would certainly be the scene before me.
On the right and left sides of the stone cave, there were small cubicles partitioned by curtains attached with nails hammered into the ceiling. I call them rooms, but due to the torn curtains on each one, what was happening inside was quite visible. People, bent by poverty and with teeth missing from hunger, swayed back and forth on the stone floor.
Their ribs were visible from starvation. Their skin was almost the same color as the stone; dust, sweat, and blood had become part of the skin. The places where they slept smelled of mud and feces. The fires they lit for warmth were unprotected and unstable. Surrounding a fire with stones was perhaps a tradition dating back millions of years. Was it possible that they didn't know such a tradition, or that their minds hadn't grasped that they needed to protect the fire from going out? Could this situation be connected to Kael's inability to perform a simple mathematical operation?
A place this uncivilized should belong to centuries past. These people must have had a life before coming here. They couldn't have suddenly lost all their humanity and civilized knowledge, could they? I looked at those people for a while... Compared to the people working in the swamp outside, these people seemed to have lost even more hope. It was as if they were waiting in despair until it was their turn to work.
If this was where Kael lived, there was no reason for the boy not to run away. The wild life outside might have been better than living here. Looking at the faces of some people, the only thing that reminded you they were once "human" was the fear in their eyes. They seemed on the verge of losing even that. What was interesting was that Kael wanted to return to his colony. Why? What was here?
As we walked on the muddy floor, everyone moved to the side to avoid the engineer's path, and some quickly drew their curtains so Engineer Hank wouldn't see them. There was no furniture, no vehicles, or tools... It was a miracle that a colony like this continued to exist.
Just then, a child stumbled into my path. I say stumbled, but what actually happened was a starving baby clinging desperately to my leg, crying.
"The situation here... it seems very serious," I said. It really was just a baby, only a couple of years old, who could barely walk. When it tried to cling to my leg and fell on its backside, I immediately rushed to the baby and picked it up. Its mother, watching from a tent in the distance, seemed grateful that I had picked up the baby. In fact, noticing that I had seen her, she immediately drew the curtain and hid behind it.
"What do you mean, Mr. ...?"
"Mr. Aldoux..."
"Don't you have a surname, Aldoux?"
"We pirates don't usually have surnames, Engineer Hank." The baby clung tightly to me while in my arms, trembling violently. I had no idea what to do with that baby. Since the moment I was born, I had never encountered a normal human being. Now, I had a crying human baby in my arms.
"Ah... I was just about to ask that. So, you're a pirate... Are you from the In-Network Pirates or the Out-of-Network Pirates?"
"I am one of the pirates inside the Republic Network."
"Incredible! You mean you're one of those mighty, sacred warriors trying to rob the Republic!" he said with great enthusiasm, spreading his arms wide.
Didn't he even consider the possibility that I was lying? Or did he not care even if I was?
"Come, let me embrace you, hero!" He was about to hug me when he noticed the baby was in the way. He immediately shouted for one of the people lying on the stone floor to take the baby. The baby tightly grasped my neck, trying not to be separated, but at the insistence of the people, its small hand had to let go of my throat. As the baby was being taken away, Hank hugged me tightly. The smell of tobacco in his hair made me nauseous. "What brought you here, friend?"
"I had a small accident and needed to make an emergency landing. Kael, from your colony, helped me on my deathbed."
"Kael, who tied your hands and arms?"
"I asked him to tie my hands and arms. Most colonies wouldn't take a foreigner as normally as you do."
"Ah... Foreigners are not much of a problem for us."
"That's very interesting... After all, you're an illegal colony. You don't have a Republic to protect you if pirates invade. Institutions won't come to protect you during a global disaster... In fact, the Republic might even want to destroy you just because you are a rogue colony. It's truly astonishing that you trust foreigners so much when such danger waits at your doorstep..."
Engineer Hank's face suddenly turned into an angry expression. It was as if he was experiencing his emotions excessively, unable to conceal his facial expressions. "Our colony is a developing and peace-loving colony, dear Aldoux. We have no enemies."
"Developing?" I said, looking around.
"Yes... This colony is one that yearns for scientific development. We can even tell this by looking at our workers, who toil in the mud for the sake of making sacrifices for science." A crowd of people began to gather around us. These people, who normally couldn't even talk back to their engineers, must have been seeing Engineer Hank genuinely angry for the first time in a long time. "This cold, this hunger, and these sacrifices are all for the advancement of science... And my team and I are working as hard as possible so these sacrifices are not in vain."
"If you are truly aiming for scientific advancement..." I began, then pointed to the vegetable root being eaten by a man nearby: "...what is the name of that plant?"
"Rootlant..."
"Perhaps you should start by giving up on cultivating that plant called Rootlant."
"Why is that?"
"It's a very small plant despite its leaves covering a very large area... You can find shrubs that bear larger fruits even in these vast, fertile forests. This planet is not that barren. You don't need the Rootlant plant." The plant was a spiritless gray color. I didn't have an analysis computer with me, but I could swear that plant had no nutritional value.
"Ah... Our team is so busy with other tasks that they probably forgot this detail. Thank you for enlightening us. First, we will analyze whether what you said is true, and then, if necessary, we will take action."
"You will analyze it? It's obvious just from the fact that the Rootlant plant has large leaves and is vitamin-deficient!"
"We cannot speak without analysis and tests, Mr. Aldoux, you must understand me..." As soon as I sensed the anger in the man's voice, I realized I needed to calm the atmosphere down a bit.
"Ah... Excuse a foolish pirate like me, who knows nothing but space. Analysis... Of course... You need analysis..."
"And what was your purpose in coming here? Please follow me, let's talk as we walk," said Engineer Hank. People sighed deeply and relaxed when they realized the tension between us had subsided. We were walking toward the depths of the cave. As we proceeded deeper, the cave narrowed, shrinking to a size where two people could barely fit.
"I needed a part for my spacecraft." I had to lie. At least to this man... It would be enough to tell the truth when I spoke with Elder Jack.
"Tell us your spacecraft's coordinates, and our engineering team will take care of your ship."
"I can take your engineering team myself."
"But you are tired from the journey."
"I don't mind."
"Of course... Is there anything you'd like to do before meeting our engineering team?"
"I want to speak to the leader of this colony." Hank's face soured once more at these words. "Elder Jack..."