I was still on the trail of the first settlers and followed a sign I had seen.
The crackling of the campfire was like a meditative song. Sparks flew into the sky and joined the stars that could already be seen in the gathering dusk. I breathed in deeply the smell of burning wood. Several inhabitants of Zephyr sat with me around the warming fire. Zephyr was the place where I had first learned about the ruined settlements.
Around the campfire, I told them that I had been to some of the old settlements and wanted to find out more about the first settlers of Stanton.
“I’m particularly interested in what happened to the settlers. Where did they go?” I concluded my story.
Everyone sitting around the fire leaned their elbows on their thighs, looking at the ground in front of them or into the campfire. No one spoke. My words burned away ineffectually in the flames. After what felt like an eternity, someone in a tattered sweater with only one sleeve straightened up, scratched his stomach and spoke in a calm voice.
“Can you imagine that there are people who want to live in freedom and outside the control of the UEE?”
“And how I can imagine that,” I replied. “I come from such a community myself.”
“And imagine,” he continued. “These people are in the way because the UEE has something planned for their territory. And then the UEE simply sends the military against these civilians.”
“I can imagine that very well too. I am from Ashana. We live in the remains of a Bengal Carrier that was sent against my people.”
“Then I don’t need to tell you that the UEE is a dystopia that must be fought back against.”
“Fight back,” shouted another, who was also sitting by the fire.
I looked up attentively. I had only recently read ‘Fight back’. Written on the wall at an forward operation base.
“Have you ever been to one of the upstream outposts?” I asked with interest.
“That’s enough for now,” the one-armed man took the floor again. “We don’t know you. First prove that you really belong to us, that we can trust you.”
“Do I have a UEE tattoo somewhere?” I replied indignantly.
“There are too many fake snakes. Masters of deception who want to undermine us. We will observe you and then decide how much to tell you. And today you can take the first step towards trustworthiness.”
He beckoned a big bald guy over to stand in front of one of the makeshift tin huts. The bald guy disappeared into the shack and came back with two packages, which he placed next to me.
“Take this inconspicuously to the scrap yard ‘Reclamation & Disposal Orinth’,” demanded the one-armed man.
“That’s Maze,” I said in surprise.
“Do you have a problem with that?”
“No,” I replied immediately. “I just didn’t think you were dealing drugs.”
“Fighting for freedom comes at a cost. We have to make money somehow.”
That same evening, I left Zephyr with the two packages. However, I didn’t fly directly to the scrapyard. I wanted to stop by the other scrap settlements on the way. I had a feeling.
Since I still didn’t know what to do with the information about the first settlers of Stanton and neither Brubacker nor Alaska were available, I decided to find out more about the sign with the three circles that I had seen in the ruined settlements. I knew I had seen it somewhere before, I just couldn’t remember where.
The first place I flew to was Weeping Cove. After the incident with Brubacker, Hermieoth and Husky in the Weeping Cove bar, I had no hope that anyone would tell me anything. But I didn’t want to ask any questions, I just wanted to look something up. First I landed down in the cove, right by the bar, and found what I was looking for. Then I flew a kilometer further to the farm. And again I found what I was looking for. The sign with the three circles. Clearly painted on a steel plate.
In the derelict settlement near Lorville, the sign had faded. The ravages of time had clearly gnawed away at it. But here it was fresh. As if it had not been painted on the steel plate for long. The sign was also clearly visible on a steel plate down by the bar. There had to be a connection between the ruined settlements and the scrap settlements. Between the first settlers and the people here. Hoping to find out something after all, I stopped by the bar again.
A group of about 10 people were standing in front of the bar. They looked at me grumpily as I walked past them with a friendly greeting and went into the bar. In the bar, I took a beer from the bucket of ice cubes and sat down at the bar table. No one came in, even after five minutes I was still alone. There was a murmur outside the door.
I was starting to get nervous. What were those people doing out there? Why didn’t anyone come in? Had they recognized me and wanted nothing to do with me? Or was something else going on? Scenarios circled through my head. One horror scenario after another popped up in my mind. Suddenly I was unsure whether I had closed the rear ramp on my spaceship. Then it ran hot and cold down my spine. The Maze, it was in my cargo hold.
As if stung by a tarantula, I jumped up. The stool fell over backwards with a loud thud, the bar table wobbled and caused the beer bottle to sway. It rocked back and forth a few times and then smashed loudly on the floor. I hurried out of the bar and past the group of people who looked after me in irritation. Breathing heavily, I reached my spaceship. The rear ramp was closed. I also found the Maze untouched in the cargo hold.
As if I hadn’t learned anything new, I didn’t fly straight to the scrapyard, but to the nearest scrap settlement. I didn’t find the sign in Cutter’s Rig, Picker’s Field and Rappel. Maybe I hadn’t looked closely enough. The settlements were large, winding and known for gunfights and pirate attacks. I didn’t want to leave myself much time for a thorough investigation. However, I found what I was looking for in Finns Foley and Markers Point. I had found the sign in half of the scrap settlements on the planet Hurston.
I stood thoughtfully at the entrance to Markers Point. Stanton’s star shimmered behind the brown clouds and bathed the settlement in a warm light. The cloths that had been stretched out to protect the settlement from the sun fluttered in the wind. The windmill squeaked monotonously. The entrance to the settlement was flanked by two masts with steel cables stretched between them. Rings hung from the steel cables. I absorbed the scenery like the dry sand of the desert absorbs water.
I was convinced that there was a connection between the ruined settlements and the scrap settlements. I didn’t believe there was a connection between the Nine Tails, who used the old settlements as shelters, and the inhabitants of the scrap settlements. The two groups were too different. So there had to be a connection between the first settlers and the inhabitants of the scrap settlements. But which one?
Then my eyes fell again on the rings on the steel cables above the entrance. Rings were circles. Rings, three circles. Everything revolved around a round sign. But what was the significance of the circle, of the three circles? Suddenly the scales fell from my eyes. I had seen an entrance with exactly the same design before, with rings hanging from steel cables. I had to get to Microtech, but first I had a load of maze to deliver.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)