Chapter 9: Slavery Is Evil

Moby Dick began with “Call me Ishmael.” Me you can call ‘hypocrite.’ My hypocrisy is slavery. Oh, I can provide excuses and justifications. Slavery is evil. There’s no getting around that fact.

The Confederacy promotes human slavery. Yes, they’re called “concubines,” but concubines have no rights that a sponsor need respect. A concubine may be murdered by her sponsor without repercussions—tortured, starved and otherwise abused. If another sponsor mistreats a concubine, it might result in a reprimand—but not always. Mistreating a Confederacy “public animal” is more serious.

The alternative to slavery—human extinction.

“Husband,” Fatima touched my shoulder. By her side was an albino lion named Kimba, her constant companion. “You’re wanted in Conference Room Four right now.”

“Let me wiggle out from underneath Blue and Cuddles,” I began.

“No,” Debra said from the doorway, “Mother wants all three of you there. Fatima can come too, but Kimba has to stay out of the conference room because our fur family frightens our visitors.”

“That may put them in danger,” Fatima remarked. “Do they know that my husband is on his best behavior when one of his fur family is present?”

“They don’t care.”

“I’ll be there,” Fatima kissed the lion, whispered something in his ear. Kimba tossed his head and trotted out the door. “Take my hand, husband.”

Blue is always slow to wake up. Cuddles was awake but silent, submissive. Fatima took Cuddles’ hand and Fatima’s other hand was in mine. Blue pressed herself against me and I held her up as we staggered out the door and down the passageway like an eight-legged beast.

“Why is everybody here naked?” someone bellowed.

Their identities were masked from me and I guessed that they were from the United Nations. I counted nine of them.

“They stink,” someone else commented.

“You interrupted their lovemaking,” Fatima announced. “I’m glad that I’m too young at the moment because if you had interrupted me making love to my husband, I would hurt you. I might do so anyway.”

Who needs a lion with Fatima by his side?

“Social nudity is proper for a civilized society,” Lilith said, “and you demanded that my husband immediately meet you here. Your demands have consequences. This is my husband and adopted son in his raw state. You were looking for dirt on my man. Here he is!”

There was a lot of anger in that room.

“We’re here to investigate human trafficking,” another said.

I quickly started an internal tracking system that numbered the unidentified people with a number. Number One was the first speaker, then Number Two, and Number Three commented on my stench. The person declaring that they were investigating human trafficking was Number Four. The others were labeled arbitrarily.

“Yes, we traffic in humans,” I used my Command Voice to project and dominate. “I just came back from the UN Security Council. Has the United Nations decided to declare war on the Confederacy—and on Earth Defense Command? If not, why are you investigating the obvious? What’s your game?”

“How do you know we’re United Nations?” Number One howled. “We’ve been masked.”

“Because Tom-cat has a brain,” Debra countered. “You could have investigated more discreetly but chose not to. Now he’s in front of you. What do you want to know?”

“How many slaves do you have here?” Number Four demanded.

“Three thousand, one hundred forty one humans,” I said. “There’s another six hundred thousand on my lunar station—if you want to count them. Do I need to add in the non-humans?”

“Our intelligence says that you have only have eight hundred slaves here,” Number Four said.

“There are 1649 dependents, 1077 concubines, 539 sponsors and 33 suspended execution convicts on Arc Dios right now,” Ricardo materialized—in a gray three-piece suit with a blue and red diagonally striped tie. “So far 86 former concubines have achieved sponsor status and another 143 former dependents have achieved sponsor status. Since Thomas has been rescuing orphans from Earth, 375 have achieved adulthood and of those 232 are now concubines, which is 38% of those orphans achieving sponsor status. That’s significantly higher than test results on Planet Earth. Thomas’ program has so far promoted 10% of the concubines that joined up.”

“You harvested nearly 1100 women from Earth?” this was Number Seven.

“Not all concubines are women,” Lilith said, “though I’d rather that this crew be entirely female. Male concubines are a minority. Only six male concubines have been promoted to sponsor. Most of the promotions are women. So the slavery thing is going to go away eventually. Tom-cat’s education program will get all but a small part of the current residents of Arc Dios to test out as sponsors.”

“But you kidnap children!” Number Seven insisted.

“Really?” I asked. “Look at these rescue operations.”

Starting with my visit to Tess and her orphanage I detailed every group of orphans rescued.

“There are three sources of slaves,” I said after that brief presentation. “First are adults that agree to become slaves in order to get off the planet and away from the Sa’arm. Are you going to take away their choice? Don’t forget that we sponsors volunteered to be under military discipline and fight the Sa’arm for the Confederacy using their containment strategy. I’ve talked about orphans, but dependents can be evacuated with their families, whether their families are sponsors or concubines—yes, slaves. The children are educated as best I can and learn what they need in order to become sponsors. The final source of dependents is those born in space. Right now none of them are old enough to take their CAP tests—they’re infants and toddlers. It will be another decade before we get results. By that time the Sa’arm will have arrived in large numbers.”

“What about the Selena Medical Center?” Number Nine asked. “Are those going to be slaves, too? I hear that you have some there.”

“You need to know this,” Ricardo declared, “the Selena Medical Center can evacuate approximately a quarter of Earth’s population. It is a medical center and most of Earth’s casualties can be evacuated and made whole again. Children will have a safe place to grow up. With multiple factions rejecting the Confederacy most of the pro-Confederacy humans remaining on Earth will have a safe operations base. Many of the people at Selena Medical Center are indeed concubines, and there are also sponsors. Most will be dependents evacuated for safety. There are a lot more humans who have taken the CAP test but are not yet volunteers.”

“We don’t let my husband read other people’s minds,” Debra said. “Not yet, at least. Your secret is safe—the secret that you’ve already made up your minds.”

I had a “huh?” moment. Well, whatever.

“I’ve been battling a movement that is working to bring the human population down to a level that they can control,” I said. “It’s not a true organization because organizations can be rolled up. The disorganized movement is given coordination orders from a ‘general command’ that has no connection with the many small groups and individuals carrying out the war on humanity. Some of these action groups are necessarily large—but not all the foot soldiers need to be fully informed. The extermination of Israel was triggered after decades of sowing hate by a single submarine launching three missiles—and then scuttling itself. Here’s the proof.”

On the walls the former R-13 submarine renamed the Baruna Maru, painted yellow and registered as a research submersible, launched the first nuclear shots in that devastating war. The skeleton crew was now truly skeletons. I displayed the sequence of events and orders—if I can call them that—used to launch the trigger attacks. The evidence was conclusive.