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Chapter 17

Zanzibar

Danzig-5012 Solar System

Trench Town, Northern Hemisphere


Six thousand kilometers north of Lang’s Burg was an isolated settlement built in an eighty-meter deep gash in the surface of Zanzibar. The windblown ceramicrete highway, built more than a century before, was raised just high enough above ground level to keep it from getting buried in dust. The long, lonely road had withstood the forces of erosion well, Zak thought. He’d had plenty of time to think about the road; the caravan from Lang’s Burg had spent over a local week making the treacherous journey. Dozens of vehicles traveled in a tight convoy, laden with supplies, fuel, weapons, and Lang’s soldiers. Trench Town wouldn’t know what hit it. Zak quietly hoped and prayed that they wouldn’t resist, that nobody would be killed.

The settlement had, before the Maggot bombardment, been little more than a mining outpost. It was so remote that even the Maggots ignored it, not hitting it with their particle beam weapons. After the fall of Zanzibar, the survivors at what later became known as Trench Town had several advantages. Their location protected them from the incessant, howling winds that plagued this region of the planet. The mines gave them access to valuable commodities like iron and salt, as well as ice—deep below the settlement was a vast, frozen underground lake. The citizens of Trench Town had been able to grow crops in greenhouses, raise livestock, and take in survivors from other parts of the ravaged world (the few that made it that far north, in any case).

Trench Town was far enough away from Lang’s Burg and Freeport that the society there posed no threat to Lang and his machinations, but that didn’t matter to the warlord. He wanted every settlement on Zanzibar under his thumb and paying tribute so that he could better equip his army. More importantly, Zak’s research had revealed that miners that had, long ago, before the war, discovered buried artifacts, a hidden treasure trove from the lost native Zanzibari civilization. Upon learning this, Lang immediately began planning to capture the town at all costs. Zak, Anna, and Cecil were dragged along to exploit the find after the town was secured.

It took Lang’s militia about two days to pacify Trench Town. The citizens put up a valiant defense, but they had few weapons and fewer people who knew how to use them. Lang’s forces were not well trained, but they were battle hardened veterans of countless such conquests of independent settlements all over Zanzibar. During the battle, Zak and his companions were held back in the encampment Lang’s men had built in the rocky highlands surrounding Trench Town. There they waited with Lang, his guards, and his camp followers, as his militia assaulted the town with gun trucks and heavy weapons. Zak watched helplessly as the defenders were cut down.

When the fighting was over, Lang rode triumphantly into Trench Town with the rest of his caravan. During a big, theatrical show trial, he acted as a judge while the citizens who fought back (and survived) were given a choice: they could pledge fealty to Aristotle Lang, or be executed. Those that chose death were hanged, strung up from rocky outcroppings of the trench in which the settlement was built, and were left to swing in the wind as a warning to the others. Zak had thrown up after watching this.

Lang was brutal in his pacification efforts, but he was also smart. While his men forcibly confiscated all the weapons they could find from the citizens of Trench Town (only Lang’s men were allowed to have guns), they also distributed food and medicine. The isolated northern settlement had been hanging on for all these years, but they were desperately short on some supplies, and Lang provided them. He even gave a big, pompous speech about how he was going to reunite all of Zanzibar, bringing civilization back to the ravaged world at any cost. It almost made Zak sick again.

This is how the wayward historian, along with his compatriots and surrounded by Lang’s guards, found himself being led deep into one of Trench Town’s mines. Only a few of the settlement’s prewar computers worked, but Zak was able to get enough information off of them to understand where he was being led. It was during this operation that the miners had discovered a natural cave system which had been sealed for millions of years. Deep in this cave system, several kilometers underground, the miners discovered what they had called “the tomb.” Leading them underground was a guide from Trench Town, a gray-haired man named Linus.

“Do you think we’ll find an actual skeleton of a native Zanzibari in there?” Cecil asked, his voice muffled by his respirator.

“I don’t think so,” Anna answered. “Unless they fossilize, bones turn to dust in a matter of decades.”

“In any case we’re not the first ones here,” Zak added. “The prewar scientists went through this place and collected everything they could find. According to the records, they used the site to store artifacts when the Maggot assault was imminent.”

Linus spoke up sullenly, leery of the armed guards all around him. “My grandfather was a small boy when the war started,” he said. “He told us stories of the splendor of the old colony, of how comfortable life was despite the harshness of our world. His father worked in the mines, and he told us stories of how they found the relics of the Zanzibari. You won’t find any skeletons in there. Everything they found was boxed up and sealed for long-term storage.”

“I suppose that will make Lang happy,” Cecil said glumly. “It’ll be easier to transport them south.”

Zak shook his head slowly at the thought, but tried to stay focused on the task at hand. It was all he could do.




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