The Hooman Saga - XX - Serial Fiction

So far: The hunters have gone off to push the ferals back against the hooman settlement. Sue learns more about this "probe" that she faces. The Chief faces his last days.

Mar 10, 2025

The wolves had selected an old hooman foundation for the probe site.

It was circular, and legend had that the old building was mostly for storage and sheltering livestock. Hooman's called it a "barn". Those that hunted in and around it said it was a slave building, trapping the beings within. Supposedly, this was by mutual consent, as the beings who sheltered in that barn had few defenses without hoomans around.

Those days were before the hoomans leaving in their sky-ships. Sentience wasn't widely available until after they were gone. After the plague took most of the remaining hoomans.

Today, that foundation would be for the ceremony. It would mark where the probe would take place, and where the sentient wolves and their cubs could watch in relative safety.

Or so they thought.

No hooman had survived the probe before. But this one was different. No hooman had been to the valley since the days of the hooman plague.

This was completely new.

And yet, more vital than ever. The ferals knew where the valley was. And the hooman settlements had been growing in size. Not just locally, but in every area where hoomans still survived. This news was brought by the migrating birds and insects.

Unless a way was found to communicate with hoomans and ferals, it would mean a new world war that would destroy both sides. A war that would never end until one or the other side was exterminated.

Tig-she led Soo-she up to the circle and then stopped. The wolf looked at her and sent her a faith-filled prayer for the best outcome.

Soo-she nodded in reply, then entered the circle.

A hawk flew in lazy circles overhead, riding the thermals. With a cry, she dove to earth. Soo-she ducked, but the wolves didn't flinch.

On landing with a graceful back-sweeping, the hawk alighted without a sound.

Eying the assembled wolves, the hawk bowed its head.

A shimmering covered that form, which showed a wolf when it cleared. Grey, almost white fur - it was Teacher.

Some cubs sent to each other about how it was quite an appearance, and found their mothers "tut-tutting" their lack of mental discipline. Soo-she also understood their thoughts and smiled, remembering the "seen and not heard" saying she had been told when she was young.

The gray wolf just smiled at Soo-she, sending "Welcome everyone. I'll skip some of the formal prayers and notices so we can get started. Our hunters are out protecting us and we need to help them. We need whatever data we can get as soon as we can. I do want to thank each of you for all you've done and all that will be asked of you. Your presence is noted and welcome, as well as our Chief, our elders, and our next generation."

Teacher nodded at the Chief and then proceeded to a spot opposite Soo-she in the center of the circular foundations.

"Soo-she are you ready to begin?"

"As I'll ever be."

"Then clear your mind and relax."

The Teacher sat on her haunches and bowed her own head. Soo-she bowed hers as well.

To Soo-she, it was as if the universe had dropped away. A brilliant white replaced everything except her and Teacher.

- - - -

Then Sue remembered her life from the beginning. She hadn't remembered being born before, seeing the world through her own Mother's eyes and those of her Father, Aunts, Uncles, and other family. She now remembered that there was a dream-catcher placed above her cradle to help her sleep. That same amulet she carried with her in her pouch that was sitting in the Teacher's den.

Then she was learning to walk, to talk the hooman speech. And to rely on talking rather than sensing. Because those around her wouldn't sense. Only the other babies did this.

It was true, then, that all knowledge was available to the youngest - until they learned to speak.

A flood of images came, then: the floor plan of the moon-colony they were in. How the air and water were recirculated and purified. How the food was grown in containers under artificial light. How the elites lived in the original city-ship which then provided heat and protection for the dome of the moon-colony. The mining that had to occur to keep the fusion generator running, but also the other industries that ran in the colony near the fusion exhaust - refraction of metals and collection of slag that was further refined for building materials. How the rare earths were extracted and collected for fine electronic uses. The collection of waste that couldn't be economically recycled or re-purposed. How these were bundled up and launched on a trajectory back to Earth so that the atmosphere re-entry would turn them back to dust. How the theories that moon dust would cause more rain and help purify the polluted skies.

As Sue remembered her youth, all the ways of hoomans came out. The moon colony were the Slaggers, the lowest caste. Then came the organizers, the business people who provided jobs. Then the government workers and officials. At the top were the royal elite families, who inherited their positions from their elders. To them, everyone else was a “down-below.”

Visions of fine dresses and suits, fashions that came and went. All shown on the TV screens the Slaggers were assembled to watch. Regular announcements were given with awards for high production numbers. Competitions were touted between the various colonies to see which ones could out-produce the others. Trophies were presented to head of business-houses, which would be put on display so the Slaggers could see them going down into and returning from the mines. The Founder's birthday was usually a big event, even though the original founders for each of the city-ships were long dead. In those cases, the shows were extravagant. Pictures of vast audiences and camera's representing each of the colonies were there to record it. Elites had the front row seats, with government behind them, and business owners and staff taking up the rear. Slaggers weren't present, as there wasn't enough room in any single presentation hall. (Or so they were told.) It was hard to tell what was virtual and what was real.

The Slaggers wore jumpsuits the entire time. That was their fashion. "Make do, do over, or do without" was their watchword. Jumpsuits were cleaned until they wore out. Then they'd be cut down to make children's jumpsuits. When those wore out, their buttons, patches, zippers, and Velcro were all removed and the remainder would be used as padding, rags, or to stuff leaks. Nothing was thrown away, everything was re-used.

You'd see the fashions start with the elites, then move to the government bureaucrats who would wear them for awhile, then down to the business class, but never down to the Slaggers except as patches for their identification and to celebrate their production achievements.

Sue remembered playing with a collection of old patches her grandmother had saved. Their bright colors faded and glitter nearly worn off. Her mother and others kept taking them out of her mouth, thinking how she could poison herself if she swallowed any of that glitter.

At that, Sue paused in her dreams.

- - - -

The whiteness faded and the wolves and circle reappeared, then the rest of the valley with it's blue sky and rocky walls.

Many of the wolves had moved back from the foundation edge, and all but the bravest cubs were behind their mothers or elder sisters.

All were wide-eyed at these thoughts that Soo-she had brought.

Teacher seemed calm enough. But you could see her own back-fur was bristled from her efforts to understand.

Everyone needed a break, it seemed.

Soo-she found her heart beating rapidly, and breathing heavier. She still sat cross-legged, with her hands in her lap, back straight.

She was appreciating the beauty of this valley even more after being reminded of how stark the life was at the colony. It seemed a life-time ago, but had been less than a couple of weeks. What that translated to in terms of ship-board time would be different still.

Soo-she noted that the Teacher was perspiring on her lips, and so knew this was a strain for her.

Soo-she sent to Teacher, "And how are you doing?"

"Better than I would have expected. And you?"

"Fine, I guess. Better than running away from ferals."

Both smiled at her joke.

Teacher sent, "As soon as our bodies have calmed down a bit, we'll proceed again. All this data will take us days, even years to understand fully. Our next effort will have to be more focused to find what we can use to help us with the feral problem."

Soo-she knew from that she was also including the feral-hoomans in that statement. All they had gotten so far was not too useful, but promised more. Hooman babies were natively able to send and receive thoughts, but this was trained out of them, apparently. It wasn't known if there was a genetic time clock running on this, or if it were a cultural problem.

The idea that lacking telepathy, or thought-sharing, was a problem would have been humorous to Soo-she before she met Tig. But now she knew that between the hooman and feral's population increases, the sentients could be wiped out if something wasn't figured out.

Her job was to provide them the data, even if it cost her sanity, her health, or even her life.

Teacher interrupted her thoughts, "Well, we've both calmed down now, as well as our audience. Ready to begin again?"

Soo-she nodded. And the dreams came back..

We’re now over halfway though this serial.

While the hunters have left to take the fight to their feral enemies, Snarl is up to something devious. Meanwhile, Sue is now undergoing her “probe” which no human before her has survived…

Now we are counting down the remaining chapters. There are some 13 more chapters after this. But you’ll have to stay tuned until next week to see how they get out of this…

For now, set your calendar to keep track of these new adventures. Every Saturday.