Erst drank a long draught and paused to collect his thoughts, perhaps to exchange a thought with one of the others.
“We here in this village or whatever you may call our home have been aware of the doings on the other side of the barrier, as we call it. It has been just a handful of your years that men have been digging and tunneling under the ground, looking for things they hope to sell to their paymasters in the cities. Perhaps the relationship is not so in all cases, but we know that some are paid by men in the cities to find these things and in some cases have indebted themselves in hopes of gaining riches.”
It was true and was not spoken of openly, but some of the more desperate miners had sold themselves into a form of bondage, making an indenture of their own freedom, and hoping that each swing of the pickax, each fresh charge of chemicals they detonated, would allow them to buy their own freedom before they lost it. The terms were variable, but the more pressed ones had signed on to terms as short as a year. I have never known anyone to come across anything of value in so short a time. Most would allow three to five years, but that would be for a correspondingly longer term of indentured labor. It was an ugly practice and had been banned for many years. But greed and desperation are potent forces and enforcement was non-existent. Too many of those responsible for enforcement owned indentures themselves, and their self-interest overrode any concerns about those unwise enough traffic in their very selves.
“Yes, some have done this. This drives them to take greater risks and often foolish chances. Not all of them return to serve their indentures.”
“Not all of our people know of this practice. I am not sure they would understand it. I am not always sure I do,” Reckter said. “We don’t know what they would do it they knew. Some would want to save those unfortunates and bring them here, while others would be inclined to punish those who profit by this awful practice.”
“But we dare not let either of those come to pass. Travel through the barrier is a closely-guarded secret. Some of us are privy to some secrets whose existence is not even suspected. If you were to go back along the path you took when you arrived, you would not get back to the barrier. That path no longer exists. Not even Therian can find that gateway. He knows of others, and guards them in his own way, and we leave them to him. In a world where thoughts are read and shared, sometimes it is to one’s advantage not to know too much.”
Erst and Reckter shared a rueful smile and I understood there were things they could not safely think about. The prospect of turning down knowing something, of forgoing knowledge, was hard to imagine. How close could one get before realizing you were too close and had to watch your step, monitor every thought? I didn’t envy the young people at all. Courtship was stressful enough without your would-be intended being able to read your true intentions.
Of course, everyone in the room could read those thoughts of mine, and I had to laugh. I suspected the younger ones were blushing as they joined in, but they found some reason to turn away as they did.
“You understand much of what goes on in a place where, by your own admission, your people cannot go. How is that? Is Therian able to get into so many places in his various guises?”
“He is very useful for that, yes, but he is very much a free spirit and as such, prone to act on his impulses. His intelligence and judgment are not to be underestimated but his temperament can work against him. It was well for whoever was pursuing you that he got no closer nor inflicted any injury.
“No, some of us can and have made journeys to your people and listened in, as we have the power to do, on conversations and the inner thoughts of some. The inner life of almost all of your people, at least where you came from, is about freedom. I don’t mean the casual ability to walk freely and speak your mind, but a freedom from more insidious threats. You have many who have willingly consigned themselves to a kind of bondage. There are still others who have enslaved themselves to finding something that will allow them to turn their back on everything they have known, to set up in some new life. These are the ones to fear most, as they are not their own masters, but in thrall to some illusionary future that will likely never come. Those whose futures are owned by others can count the days to an end, but these others never know that.”
“I have known both of these, and I understand what you say. I cannot say you are wrong. There is a hunted look on many of their faces and I had not put it as you do. But it does illustrate their unwillingness to yield, even in the face of tremendous risks. I wonder if the ones I have seen push their luck beyond its limits were of that camp. There are rarely any next of kin to notify and clearing up their affairs is usually a matter of paying their local debts from the sale of whatever possessions they left behind. And most of what they own goes on their backs. Such friends as these wretches make will take up a collection to settle their tavern debts. They go unmourned, in most cases. I expect few families know their kin are out here, and as few as make it back, it must look all the more mysterious. I recall my own surprise when I realized how many were here: it exceeded my expectations, based as they were on the news that comes back from the New Lands.”
Erst picked up the argument. “But is this freedom at all? They sell years of their lives, even their life itself, to someone who offers them a minimal return, all for the sense of being at no one’s beck and call. Yet, they drive themselves harder here than they ever did when they felt like slaves in the cities. Those who do earn their passage back are rarely the same person. Their health is often ruined. They are far less likely to be fit to rejoin society in any meaningful way, after years of entertaining themselves with cruel jokes, mindless violence, while enveloped in constant paranoia and greed.
“If I could make it so, I would find these men something more meaningful to occupy themselves with. To put it simply, none of them strike me as worshipful men. There are no temples or houses of worship that I have seen, so I suspect there is no promise of a next life driving them. They are of the here and now, but what a wretched one.
“I have no idea what that could be, what could motivate or interest them beyond treasure from the ground.”
“The freedom they hope to buy with the treasure has become the reward, in other words.” I had never thought it through, but it was obvious now. These wretched fools regarded the opportunity to break their backs, even their necks, in this barren and desolate wasteland as a respite from being part of the social engine, the hive in which they never be more than a drone.
There was a lull in the conversation as we digested this analysis. Right or wrong, it seemed convincing. We each knew some aspects of the work ethic of the men I had lived among, and together we could put together a picture of their value system, their reasons for doing what they did.
None of us would agree that it made sense or that it was sustainable. If none of the current adventurers struck it rich, it would be unlikely many more would make the journey. It was word of mouth, both good and bad, that fueled interest in these places of last resort. If someone did well, it was plain someone would take their place. Often the holder of their indenture would recruit someone, perhaps an existing debtor, to try their luck. And even if someone returned empty-handed or worse, dead, it was always possible to find some unfortunate to whom this was a step up.
I broke the silence. “I am at a loss. Do you propose somehow to refocus the attention of these desperate characters and turn them into farmers? Or get them to go back to the places they abandoned and try to make another go at city life?”
“No, I don’t see that as something we can hope for. We cannot change them. But nor can we expect things to stay as they are. If we were indifferent, we could let them wear themselves to nothing without a second thought. But we are not indifferent. The more we learn about this, the more it threatens us, as it could disrupt the barrier that separates us. We could not see men, differ from us though they may, live their lives as nothing more than insects.”