1 - Running
It was the third time that I ran away from home that I really got myself into trouble. The first time, I was 13 years old. My Dad had asked me to do some chore or other—I think he wanted me to repair the tractor. I had just picked up a book about the history of Inner-Space, and I wanted to read it and threw a tantrum. It was almost the sowing season and My Dad did most of the work around the farm. He had been priming me for this moment for a long time.
“Tylus, Son, you’re getting old enough now that I can use your help.” He would say, casually, around the dinner table. I was the oldest of my siblings, and so the first to be eligible to help meaningfully with the work of the farm. Theoretically, my Dad would leave the farm to me when he died, so the sooner I started learning the trade, the better. “I’m not getting any younger,” he would sigh at other times, “An extra pair of hands would really go a long way.” Classic guilt trip, Dad.
I saw through him—he wanted to taper off and let me pick up the work. But I was learning about the stars, the planets, the climactic rise of the Jovian Union, the Rebellion led by Huron Theyst, the terrible Battle at Riven IV. These things excited me. Farm life was all I ever knew, and all I would ever know if it weren’t for these books.
Our neighbor, Old man Mackerel, supplied the books. He was a retiree—not sure what he did to earn his pension but I always grew up understanding that he earned it well. Periodically he would go into town and when I was working in the field, weeding or fixing or planting, Mr. Mackerel would stop by on his way home and say hello and give me a book he picked up in town. Next time I saw him, I would return the book and he would give me another one. This exchange went on for years, and it is how I learned so much about history, which I loved.
Old man Mackerel was knowledgeable about history too. He especially knew a lot about our home planet, Koslov, on the star system Koslov, in the Koslov Union. Mr. Mackerel told me that the first people on Koslov were not very creative, which made me laugh. Mr. Mackerel told me that the Koslov Union had only existed since the fall of the Jovian Union, and before that it had been a small backwater in a huge interstellar empire, when the Jovian Union had been at it’s greatest extent.
“How did the Jovian Union get so big?” I asked.
“Ohhh,” he would say, play-acting as if he was accessing some deeply held secret in the archives of his mind, “The J.U. was a military power first and foremost. They were founded by military might, consolidated by military might, and expanded by military might. Military powers only expand using the military.”
“Why don’t they try some other way?”
“Ohhh, maybe they would try. But it is military power that they were good at. Some are economic powers, some are cultural powers. But those Jovians, they were military men.”
“So how did Theyst beat them if they were a military power?”
“Theyst beat military power with military power—that’s the thing, you live and die by the hand that feeds you. If it is military might that keeps you alive, it is military might that will put you down.”
I thought about that for a long time. If the Jovian Union could only learn some new way of doing things, maybe they could have stayed alive. My Dad is a farmer, and if nothing changes then I would be a farmer too. But if I didn’t learn some new way of doing things, I would be undone by farming, just as the Jovian Union was undone by military might. That was my youthful reasoning, anyway.
So one day, I was reading a book about the other powers of Inner-Space, when my Dad told me I needed to repair the tractor. Looks like he had stopped hinting and started demanding I participate in farming. I was scared that this would ruin my life, that I would be stuck, that all learning would stop. I slammed my door, my Dad raised his voice, we both said things we regret. Eventually my Dad went out to repair the tractor, and my Mom came in to make peace.
My Mom was very good at making peace, she made helping Dad out on the farm sound like such a noble thing. But I knew the truth—so I thought. I knew the Jovian Union was undone by doing the same thing, and I didn’t want to be undone by doing the same thing. I wanted to do something different.
That night, I packed a bag of clothes, waited until I heard my parents tromping upstairs to go to bed, and I snuck quietly out the front door.
Here is the thing about Koslov. Old Man Mackerel was right—it was a backwater. It was a winter planet, there was usually snow on the ground, the weather was usually extremely cold. The evening I ran away, it was negative six degrees outside. The other thing about Koslov being a backwater was that it has a relatively low population. Well, relatively. Most of the population is in the city—I could always see the glow of the city coming over the horizon, but that was it. There were only huge farms between our house and that city, so it was dark. I could see the Milky Way that night, when I looked at the stars. But when I looked away from the sky—pitch black, except for the red glow of the city over the horizon. I was cold and afraid before I reached the property line. I had not thought this through. I cried for a while outside, when my Dad came running after me and picked me up in his big farmers arms, even though I was 13 years old—too old to be carried, but not old enough to be above being carried by my Dad—and he brought me inside, bundled me up, and made me a hot cup of cocoa.
He and I sat and talked for a long time that night. I told him about my conversation with Mr. Mackerel. He listened to me, and tried to explain that living and working on a farm was different from running an empire. That was true enough. He explained that he wanted to spend more time with me—I was becoming a young man before his eyes and he didn’t want to be working while I grew up behind his back. He hoped that I would tell him about those books I was reading, since he was never that curious and his Dad didn’t have any books when he grew up.
I cried, he cried, we hugged. The next day he showed me how to repair the tractor.
I like how you capture Tylus' reaction to being asked to fix a tractor. The cascading significance that is very realistic for a 13 year old. Fixing a tractor is not just fixing a tractor--it is the same stuff that killed the Jovian Union, and it will kill me, too! Love the world already!
🧐