Discovery_Taurian Empire by Nate Johnson

Author:Nate Johnson [Johnson, Nate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-07-06T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Nick glanced over his party. They seemed excited and worried at the same time. Grundal was absent again that morning. So Nick had decided it was time to explore outside the city.

All three of the other humans had jumped at the opportunity. Amanda, of course, was worried but excited. Worried that Grynd would use it as an excuse to denounce them.

Doctor Simpson was just pure excited. She couldn’t wait to test some of the plants they had missed in their initial observations.

Professor Robinson had simply nodded and said, “Yes, I agree, we should explore the fields.”

So, here they were at the East Gate.

The two guards studied them as they approached, their piercing eyes taking in every detail, but neither made a move to stop them. They simply watched them walk out through the gate.

“It feels different out here,” Amanda said with a smile. “More open. Not as constricting.”

Nick could only nod. This was what planetside was supposed to feel like. A fresh breeze, distant horizons, a smell of freshly turned earth and animal waste.

“You said your father was a farmer?” Amanda asked as they slowly made their way up the East Road.

“Yes,” he answered as memories washed through him. “On New Kansas.”

“So, this should be familiar to you.”

Nick laughed. “Not exactly,” he said. “My job was to monitor the bots and fix them when they broke. My brothers and I would take shifts in the control room. Around the clock, almost every day of the year. I didn’t spend a lot of my time with my hands in the soil. More like inside the guts of an automated combine.”

She raised an eyebrow obviously surprised. “You spoke so passionately about having to plow a field. I thought ...”

He laughed. “We ran thirty-four square miles of fields. Wheat mostly, with some corn. A family of seven. It would have taken a thousand Eundai to farm the same amount of land without our technology and they would produce half as much off the same land.”

She looked up at him strangely for a moment.

“Let’s just say, I am ever thankful I wasn’t born a few hundred years ago.”

“Why did you leave?” she asked, her eyes burning with curiosity.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Why does any farm boy leave to join the Imperial Navy? To see the galaxy. To test himself and to get away from the mind-numbing drudgery of watching machines plow patterns into distant fields.”

She laughed. “Well, you’re seeing a different part of the galaxy that is for sure.”

He laughed, “What about you?” he asked. “Why xenobiology?”

Her eyes crinkled with a smile. “There was never going to be anything different for me. My mother used to say that I was born wondering why people did things the way they did. Constantly asking questions. Studying alien life was a way for me to better understand humans. If that makes any sense.”

He nodded. “Sure, I get it.”

“Of course, until now. It had been studying animal life. They have a hundred different social structures. But it’s not the same thing as studying an intelligent species.

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