The Gaming Outpost

The man crawled on his hands and knees out of the hole in the white rock which led down to the interstellar colony ship, Deep Voyager.  The Artificial Intelligence on board had the willingness and the power to protect its planet and people, the ten million Sienniese from rampaging space pirates. But, the last Captain had commanded it to hide itself.

Juniper, his battle-damaged robot valet, rolled up to the man, and offered him a nice, steaming cup of mint tea.  This was followed by grapes, cheese, and then when the man was recovered enough to stand from his long climb out of the mountain, over to a fire above which a steak was cooking.

“How?” The man asked.  He knew Juniper was a terrific robot, but producing steak and mint tea in a cup in the howling wilderness exceeded even its capabilities, he would have thought.

“Ahem.” A tunic dressed man stepped out from behind a tree when Juniper pointed his way.  The man had his pistol out in his right hand, and his commando knife out in his right.

“Peace.” The man pleaded.

Juniper said nothing but a soft fluting noise came from it that relaxed the listener.

“Explain.” The man ordered and such was his manner of sudden doom that the tunic clad man nodded.

“I am of the Turovacki, and we found ourselves much opressed by the pirates who kidnap our women, steal our food….so we went forth to live as our ancestors did in the woods and hills, always moving.”

Juniper spun the steak a bit on the crossbar to cook it the Juniper style which is just right.

“We are cattle farmers, or were. Now we take cattle with us. Your creature, it came into our village, and by various clever means made a trade.  We had much sickness.”

The man nodded, and then urged the other to sit down.  Juniper was a personal assistant robot.  He had left it alone.  It had gone wandering for people to help while keeping an earphone at the cave entrance to listen for him.

“And your people?”

“They are camped over the next hill. Your creature made it known to us that we would be safe near you.”

“I will try. By the way, its name is Juniper.”

“Ah. Yes. I am Mowta.”

The man did not give his name.

After a bit, the man shared his meal with Mowta, and he talked to him of the problem.

“The scholars from the large cities would laugh at you, sir.”

The man raised an eyebrow, inviting an answer, before going back to his wooden plate, and spearing a red-tinged chunk of steak.

“We have always been here, they say.”

“Hmmm. Well, I just talked to an AI who is pretty convinced he took your people to this planet. So no offense to your scholars, boy, but I’m going with an AI with a probably IQ of 300.”

Mowta smiled and chewed the last swallow of his rather tasty cooked root.

“Your Juniper is a great cook. If only it had legs and curves, I would marry it.”  The man chuckled in acknowledgement, and waited.  Oftentimes certain cultures worked their way around to telling you they thought you were stupid.

“But, sir, they are not MY scholars.  Even before the Turovacki were chased from their city, we had not lived many generations as city dwellers.  We follow what we call the Old Ways.”

The man indicated his curiousity, and pointed out to Juniper that if possible he would not mind another small steak, about half the size of the first, just to fill in the corners.  Juniper complied, pleased to be helpful.

“What are these…Old Ways?”

“We came from the stars on board a giant raft that was magic and could talk to us.  On board this raft were many gods and goddesses.  They came to this land, and divided it amongst themselves, and gave each one a portion to their children, and children’s children.  Even now, we live in the land our great goddess gave to us.”

The man nodded, familar with how oral history could frequently stand the test of centuries with some twists and turns and misunderstandings based on the viewpoint of the witness.

“That sounds about right.” The man said. If you substituted interstellar colony ship for magic raft, and talking ship for AI, and crewmembers with advanced health procedures built into the bodies for gods and goddesses, who then got busy and had lots of kids, and doing the smart thing gave every small group their own legal patch of land to try to minimize disputes later, it was History.

“How do I find out your ancestors? Do you keep records?”

The tunic wearing Mowta was aghast.

“Of course we do.  How else are you to prove you have a right to a man’s section of the tribe’s land when you take up the branding iron and the spear?”

The man assumed that the branding iron was the symbol of adult work, and the spear, the symbol of adult responsibility for tribal defense.  He was uncertain if the word ‘man’ meant they were patriarchal, or just a way of saying ‘people’.

But if one’s legal right to enough land to support oneself and one’s family rested on correct records of lineage, then yes, they would be very carefully recorded.  That was good, that was very good.

“So, do you have a Recordskeeper, and can I meet her?”

Somehow the man knew it would be a her, and so it turned out to be.  Over the hill, after the fine meal, and after both complimented the chef who was not used to such things, but found itself curiously content afterwards, was a small community of tents under the trees, surrounded by hundreds of cows.  And in one tent, was a very old woman.  She was the Recordskeeper.