On our fourth day alive we killed the elderly, as has always been the custom. Three days of tolerance, of something like restraint, then when the great Chroniker chugged into gear for another cycle, we had at it. I would not have waited so long, but tradition does have some brief part to play in life’s journey.
The three-day rule has its purposes, of course. The baton being passed, lessons from yesterday brightening today. But frankly, my people need very little instruction before being ready to blaze out into the world, and our days are far too few to be spent lingering in lecture halls, enduring those withering old Tenners droning on and on about bygone decades. Five, seven, even ten minutes at a time we are expected to just sit and listen! If you knew anything at all about my race, traveller, you might appreciate a little more how tortuous that kind of patience really is.
You see, the growth and development of my people is the result of the most elaborate procedure in the Galaxy. For three hundred years we are assembled piece-by-piece, methodically brewed in the blue bubbles which are our birth pods, suspended in their thousands in our Hatcheries. Over the centuries we are prepared for the world in every way imaginable. Genetic enhancement, biomechanical augmentation, subliminal hypnopaedic conditioning. Every sense refined, every faculty attuned, and every flaw smoothed out by the Paternal Hand; that glorious automated process which guides our pre-lives with divine precision.
Our brains, upon reaching their maximum levels of genetic development, undergo training by simulation. Virtual landscapes are made available to us. Dropped into boundless digital worlds, we receive form and power in which to do as we please. From there, we develop not just the automatic, animal motions of our beings, but also those higher motions called the Will. In our dreamscapes matter itself bends to our genius and we build magnificent worlds, playing at life in extravagant feats of simulated Godhood.
Then comes Birth, and with it death, terror and tribulation. In the dreamscape the fact of our mortality exists as mere academic knowledge, but in life it is never far from our minds. The Chroniker tick-tocks upon every wall. The first thing seen upon emerging from the Hatchery is that sphere looming over us, and in our wrists are scorched a bright reminder of the relentless arrow of time. On the hour, every hour, a great clash resounds through the Ship, making the idleness of sleep impossible. My people do not permit ourselves the luxury of downtime, to recharge we merely bathe ourselves in the bottled solar energy of distant suns.
How could we ever allow ourselves to forget time? What greater crime is there than to waste three centuries of growth on a frittered away life? All that promise and potential, and only a ten-year lifespan to meet it.
You’re how old, traveller? That’s simply… grotesque. What creature could ever shine for so many years? How sterile and aimless your days must be, with all those years stretching out in front of you in an indeterminate tenure. What must you do with your life? Raise a family, you say? There is no surer way to ruin the young then to have them co-exist with their elders. Whilst your people stagger and fumble through their early lives, mine surge like fire to set the world alight.
At the heart of the Hive when the Chroniker strikes midnight, from the pods emerges the next Decade. As a generation we rise as one to take command of our Vessel, now centuries along on its maiden voyage. Within two days we are equal to the decrepit Tenners, within three we surpass them. Day four, of course, we are equal to operating the Killing Floor. We round them up from their abodes and gather them there, depose their leaders, torch their works and flush them out into the black infinity of space.
Some have escaped from their fate this time however, as has been known to happen in the epochs before us. Seven of the old duffers evaded our hunting parties and fled down into the bowels of the ship, the lower decks where the rusty relics of the Provisional Era gather dust. These are the decks of the original skeleton crew, those who commanded our Vessel in the early days of the voyage, whilst the first batch was budding in the Hive. Viviparous, monogamous and long-lasting. They lived primitive lives, but were excellent caretakers for the first of our kind.
Now their resting place has become a haven for the dispossessed elderly, wretches who have outlived good custom, and dwell together in the dark. We sent Parties below in the early days to root them out and pick off stragglers, but our work soon had to turn to the business of life. And what threat could they possibly pose to us in any case? Still, it is haunting to consider what abominations live down in that place below. Tenners, Teeners, even some as old as Two-Oh or Two-Five! There is even a fable, carried from generation to generation in hushed terror, of the Old Man. A shadowy ancient who has evaded the young for generations, rumoured to be no less than Four-Seven years of age! He is said to be hiding down in the vast Dead Engine at the base of the Ship, a forsaken place we dare not enter.
Such dark fables are of no consequence however, for we have the upper decks, and with them control of the Vessel. Our destination is out there somewhere in the big black cosmos, a pearl in the sky awaiting our arrival. Those who came before us failed to find it, but they were not us. First, however, there is the issue of leadership. We are not a docile people, you understand, and with the death of the Tenners whatever antiquated hierarchy they built for themselves has been flushed away. Power must be generated anew.
The early months have been crucial for us: likeminded brothers and sisters joining into bands, claiming territory, making alliances. All want to seize control of the Ship for themselves, only the fittest to lead will rise to the top. During our education we refrained from open hostility, but now the cold war which started at our birth has turned hot, and casualties are growing. The Juvenites have living quarters E through K and the kitchens. The Hebellions have N through S and the rec rooms, whilst the Idunces are still stumbling through the A-B-Cs. The Rising Tide have the vents, conducting their guerrilla campaign across the ship: blocking oxygen supplies and dropping their makeshift bombs through our ceilings. They have proven troublesome, though will be little more than a nuisance when we make our move.
Currently in command are the Khansu Clan, a pack of spineless brutes who rushed the control deck and have sealed themselves in. They’ve escaped most of the true fighting, but theirs is an uneasy alliance, led by a dim-brained creature named Krug Kan. He made the mistake of uniting with too many of the strong early on, and now he’s stuck on that small bridge with nothing but bored challengers to his rule. King Krug is soon to learn what happens when you don’t feed mad dogs: they bite off your legs instead.
As soon as the Khansu start ripping themselves apart, it’s our turn to take the deck and steer this Ship. But for now, we defend. We’ve erected barricades at all key entry ways into the labs where we have made our base, my band of revolutionary fighters. Under the banner of the Young Turks, we fight for the future of this Vessel. Does it surprise you that I am leader? What did you expect? We are not one for useless ceremonies here. Who needs a crown when they have the undying loyalty of a tribe?
But now let’s turn to you, traveller. For you interest me greatly, and evidently by your questions we interest you also. I could order your death, but the rest of my people dare not touch you. They speculate in hushed terror on how many generations you have walked across the surface of other worlds, and fret that you have come to seduce us away from our holy voyage. My people are not alone in this. All the bands of the Ship are united in their fear of you… and now their fear of us, of course.
You should cultivate your myth, it is all that protects you at this moment. But not from me. I see through your ‘magic’. You walk with the stoop of an ancient scholar and employ the meek manners of a trained diplomat. You are no stranger to hostile places, am I right? In fact, you likely came here because it is hostile. Morbid curiosity has carried you here, to watch us oddities at work. Did you think us children at play?
The truth is, you’re as harmless as any other viviparous savage. Yet the idea of your malevolence may serve us well in the years to come; a shadow on the wall can be a powerful thing. Do you understand now? You are to be my tool, my lightning rod, my lie, which will end this war once and for all.
To my people you will be ‘Great Turk’, a living deity, He who rode in on starlight to make us victorious. To enemies you will be the ‘Scourge’, an unkillable foe – not least of which because you will never see the battlefield yourself. And when victory comes you will be something simpler: a bargaining chip, to be traded with this mysterious Institute from which you claim to originate. You will be released in return for our safe passage away from any semblance of galactic civilisation. Then finally we will be free, under my helmsmanship, to travel on to our pearl in the sky: the hallowed Homeworld of the Fountain of Youth.