Promises Broken

The day was becoming quite pleasant. A slight breeze came out of the south, large puffy cumulous clouds wafted on the horizon breaking up the otherwise cobalt blue of the sky. Golian watched the wind driven “V”’s dance in the long green grass that stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction.

Nearby, two of Arabian herd 24b whickered and whinnied and took off at a gallop. The rest of the herd was head down eating grass not concerning themselves with the foals. Golian slowly walked up to one of the feeding horses and in one deft movement brought the hypospray nozzle to the horse’s flank and pushed the metal stud. The horse’s tail came up to bat away a perceived fly.

Arcturus-B’s violet fiery head poked over the hills to the east, the light from the star changing the grass’s color ever so slightly towards yellow. The think stripe of the central milky way ran brightly overhead. Individual stars clearly visible even though it was halfway to lunch time.

Golian’s hand paused running through his short gray hair, a red light blinked silently yet insistently on the dash. He put his bag on the back of the skiff, climbed in after it and settled into the front seat.

He took two deep breaths before pushing the button. The com screen lit up with one mere word: VISITORS. He tapped in a response to the AI that ran most of the planet: “Supply early?”

A second later: “NEGATIVE. MANNED SHIP. ETA 2.5 HOURS. REQUESTED HUMAN INTERFACES.”

Golian took one more deep breath trying to choose his response, trying to keep his irritation/anger down. After a second he responded: “Negative clearance. Wave off. Go home. Arm Satellite defenses.”

“NEGATIVE…”

“What do you mean negative? Get rid of them.”

“NEGATIVE. SATTELITE OVERIDE PROTOCOLS HAVE BEEN ACTIVATED BY INCOMING. ETA 2.2 HOURS.”

This wasn’t right. He was supposed to have sovereign reign over the planet. A back water planet in the middle of no where that no one wanted. No minerals, no animals. Just he and his horses. That had been the promise. That had been the agreement. That had been the price extracted for both the sacrifices he had made and the sacrifices he had caused. He was supposed to be left alone to raise his horses. To get the occasional news feed and supply drop had been perks.

No one was supposed to visit, especially someone unexpected and they were absolutely not supposed to be able to override the defensive satellites surrounding his planet. But, contrary to what his benefactors/captors thought, you didn’t get to be as old as he was by not being able to adapt to broken promises.

He chose a high altitude parabola to cover the 400 miles to the compound in 6 minutes. Ellie met him at the door. He called her that and she accepted it even if it wasn’t her original name, not that Golian could pronounce it anyway, his mouth lacked the necessary vocal chords and bones. The name Ellie was a close enough approximation that had turned from a child-like insult over the decades to a term of endearment. He had adopted her at first out of pity and guilt all those decades ago but had learned to accept her and eventually to love her as if she was his own daughter. Almost. Blood was thicker than water, and water thicker than species bonds.

“Ellie we’re getting visitors. Unexpected visitors, please have the house prepare their room and you need to stay out of sight for the next several hours.”