Foreign Currency
Prim Dorm came in from the north on a mechanical animal with wheels. The city was already aglow with crimson lights as evening was settling in on the remote outpost. His goal or assignment is to gather Titanium coins from the surrounding seven planets to balance out the yearly financial reports for equity in the systems. The masters of Orb 3, Prim's home world, were the administrators of the entire solar system, therefore they controlled the economy on the other worlds. Existence was based on an intergalactic corporate scheme that benefited everyone.
There was no time to waste but he decided to look up an old friend. Prim decided to take an extra day at the oasis to cool down. His friend Sam was an intelligent cyborg he met over three hundred years ago. They shared many common interests in science, technology and economics. His expertise was in geothermic causality and mineralogical history. They would study star charts together and find time to meander through the narrow labyrinthine streets to check out the ancient architecture.
He would rest and then start out at first light of the second day towards the west in search of the treasury capitol in The Gardens of E-bar. E-bar was still thousands of miles away through the hot granular sands of Desert Ceres.
The luminous Silver Sol would guide him on his way once it reached the parallax on the horizon with the other much much smaller binary star which was situated just below it on the right. Mornings were always beautifully complex on this quirky world. Travel was always problematic since it is a desert world. Heavy high dunes and sand storms were the norm.
Fortunately for Prim, his beast machine consumed sand and rocks and needed very little repair to survive. Its efficiency and efficacy were astounding.
This region of the galaxy was rich with sentient life. 7 of the 10 planets supported significant intelligent living creatures of humanoid and mechanical origins. These entities had been around in an advanced state of evolution for hundreds of thousands of years. Space exploration and mining of asteroids for precious metals and gems was their primary source of work and entertainment.
Prim worked 18 hours a day out of the 29 hours in a day for several months to fulfill his fiduciary obligations to the galactic masters. The rest of his time would be spent speeding off to new uncharted locations at the speed of light in his silver space craft looking for adventure.
His two agents or assistants, Tim and Ugar would join him in the morning of designated departure. They were fully proficient and fully trained creatures from his home world. Ugar was mostly a machine but there was a rumor that he may have originated from an egg in a biologic state. It does not matter. The important thing is to get the job done so they can all go back to their real lives in the real world. All creatures live to explore, to grow, to learn and to pay taxes. It is the great galactic formula for success and survival.
In these days most intelligent beings share a common bond with the universe around them. Science and religion merged together thousands of years ago. Creatures and machines alike want to know more about the outside universe and about the newest super-void discoveries.
Most creatures have faith in math and science even though they do not understand it. They have faith in God. They simply recognize He created all things visible and invisible. The “invisible” is harder to believe but faith is faith. We all trust that there is a great void out there and there is more to come.
Good machines go to heaven when they die. Humanoid types go there as well but it is a harder climb.
A strangely mystical event occurred about two thousand years ago, almost simultaneously, on the seven known livable planets. The Lord visited them all at the same time. He lived, died, was buried and then came back to life. The evidence of this miracle repeated on other worlds was overwhelming. They speculated that if you are God you can do anything. In fact anything and everything is pretty easy if you happen to be God. It is in His nature to do impossible things. Being at all places at one time is pretty cool.
Prim is only a lowly tax collector but he has high hopes of finding his own super-void and to come to a greater understanding of God and His origins. It is pretty common knowledge that God came from the great super-voids, from nothing and nothingness. Science has explored and classified over two hundred thousand such voids so far. They know there are still thousands more yet to be discovered.
Children and the elders delight in sitting around for days on end contemplating these vast distances where there is no matter, no life, no light, not even a single atom in those dark reaches of space, those existences that stretch for trillions of light years without end, over trillion more parsecs of time and space far beyond the comprehension of the masterminds of our time.
Children are such curious creatures. They seem to get smarter every year. Even the non-biologic ones ask strange questions. One of Ugar's little ones asked him why there is no grass or trees on their planet? He could not answer because he had never heard of such things. In fact, the color green was unknown to him and he was perplexed at the very concept of “ocean.” What in the world could an ocean be?
It turns out that some of their explorers had just returned home from a far off star system where they found a small world. It was like a blue marble with such strange unbelievable things. It was such a peculiar place, weird enough to ignite anyone's imagination. They had dumb creatures living there on the land that were big and fat, dressed in leather, with four legs, that sat around chewing on green stuff called grass. It was vastly amusing. Most of the planet was covered in blue liquid. It was hysterical. They brought back pictures of the humans living there. The too were funny looking.
Prim and his two workers finally met up just before dawn at the outpost entrance. The air was thick with orange sand that had kicked up overnight in the form of a modest storm on the heels of a wind bank coming in from the south.
It was decided to take the proton air ships. They could rise above the storms and be at their destination in half the time.
Arriving at the Gardens of E-bar was always a thrill. It was a majestic region. The capital center was a series of mile high corporate structures made of shiny copper and pink crystals. When the three of them entered the chambers of the governing officials they were met with frowns. It turns out there was no currency waiting for them to be returned to the home world. This was a serious problem because it would clearly upset the balance in the natural order of things.
They were told a story. It was a fantastic unbelievable tale. A twelve foot android read the report out loud. It read like a fairy tale. We were informed that one of their space ships arrived back home several months ago carrying several alien creatures from a previously unexplored region of the cosmos. They were not sentient. They were wild animals brought back purely for science research and for dissection.
Things got out of hand, way out of hand; to the point where the inhabitants of this planet, you know, the intelligentsia, were unable to dissect them or control them. Matters got worse. The creatures like to eat metals. Their favorite food happens to be Titanium coin, a foreign currency to them. Their large, sharp, jagged, many rows of teeth made quick work of the money. They could not get enough. They could not be stopped and they are still hungry. Prim and his men had many bags of coins on board their craft. Several of the beasts were headed towards their ship for more. You know, the coin of the realm.
This event would not go over well with his superiors back on Orb 3. Prim might be headed for the void earlier then he planned.
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