Under Review

He was working in the pala field, tossing wilted flowers into a gaping bag with his head turned down. A dense assortment of green and dry brown stretched to the horizon. There were clouds in the sky, but they did not spare him from the humid sun, nor did the occasional quiet whisp of wind. It was tedious work. He had started a few klicks to the east at dawn, a foolhardy choice. Though with the flat expanse of farmland it hardly mattered what direction you started, he supposed. The day was certainly not cooling down. He rather enjoyed contemplating his thoughts in the strangling, muggy silence anyway.

“Lunch.”

He paused. The tawny man behind him tossed a wrapped sandwich his way. He picked it up and set it into his pack.

“Maro.”

Setting his rake on one of the pala plants, he sighed and faced the man. He was not a thoroughly old creature, but everything about him was worn, from his skin to his eyes and clothes. Maro eyed him with contempt, which firmly met a frustrated posture.

“I’m not hungry right now, Tipéko.”

“Eat anyway.”

“I prefer to work.”

“You work too hard. That’s why you’re here.”

Maro laughed dryly. “Says the senior.”

“I told you this at the start, but you either enjoy your time here or I tell the foreman you didn’t get better.”

“Ooh,” mocked Maro, gently unwrapping the sandwich. “Maybe I’ll go serve in the cafeteria, see if that ‘clears my head’.”

“Sorry, those jobs are for people who’ve worked more’n a turn.”

“Hey. I’m traumatized.”

“You’d think a man who spent nearly a fifth of a cycle doing real work would’ve realized how stupid that sounds.”

“A fifth? Twelve turns isn’t a fifth unless you round like a child.”

Tipéko laughed. “Eat.”

It was a good sandwich. Bits of shredded pork and melted cheese. And it did pull him out of the stupor one enters when repeating a task for hours.

“Message came in from the Core. What should I tell ’em?”

He had gotten out of the habit of keeping in touch. It was starting to cause trouble. “The truth.”

“Alright, I’ll say you’re really loving field maintenance but you need a lot more turns ’till the trauma washes off.”

“So, when I say the truth…”

He put his hands up. “In all seriousness, I did hear that the commander might be coming here.”

Maro downed his canteen and stood up. “Why?”

“Your little party’s probably gonna end.”

“Damn. Welp, nice knowing you.”

He had said it as a joke, but there really was no reason to linger.

“You think he’s coming soon?”

Maro grimaced. “I have never heard of an officer from the Core caring enough to visit one of these resorts. These programs are where they dump people like me for half a decade after we blow up a province.”

A dry chuckle. “I was born in the wrong place. People like me do that, send ya to a nice place called prison.”

“The difference being I didn’t mean to.”

Tipéko looked at him for a moment. Then he adjusted the strap of his water bag and glanced back over the field, where two workers had stopped under the heat waves.

“I’ve got people wasting daylight,” he said. “Eat the rest. Then answer your commander.”

Maro sighed. He shouldn’t have rested that long. His limbs were starting to ache and the air was making him lethargic. He turned back to the cactus-tree in front of him, found a yellowing flower attached to a thick, ribbed stem. Up, down, left, right, twist, yank. An entire day of this. He picked up the bag, tied it, dropped it at the end of the row. Grabbed another bag from the crate sitting there and moved on.

There were thousands. Tens of thousands. Here and there he looked up and saw someone else in the distance, some other poor soul who had the misfortune of coming here for his “mental health.” The Core loved sappy stories. Maro was sure that at some point the bureaucrats ultimately responsible for him being here instead of somewhere useful had heard of some soldier finding himself again after slowing down and learning to enjoy nature. Maybe there was romance involved. Whoever it was, they contributed to an air of wanting to “care” for those serving the Union. So, soldiers, those in the Service, Airmen, and whoever else got to hold a gun began to flood these farms— in many cases displacing the farms’ original workers. All in support of feeding the world. Still, the amount of people seeing combat was getting lower. Every turn he heard of more airships converted into luxury cruisers, recruitment cratering, and all the signs of permanent world peace approaching. Maybe one day, civilians would work here again.

Over the next few hours, Maro covered row upon row of pala. They just blurred together. The afternoon peak had eased and the temperature was tolerable again. Color drained from the horizon as the sky turned rosy. And here he still was, pulling flowers. It was important work—they so often grew fungus or became homes for critters that would eat the plants from the inside—but ever monotonous. Perhaps the best work for traumatized soldiers.

He was approaching a lookout tower now. It stood boldly over the flat horizon but was closely nestled between the pala, like a buoy in the sea. He saw it was empty as he got closer. Made sense. No reason to have people sitting all day in the shade. He finished the row and chucked his bag into the empty crate. Just as he was about to grab another, a subdued chime rang out from the tower. Maro stopped and turned his eyes westward. After a few moments, the same chime reverberated from other towers throughout the farm, before a muffled recording of the anthem sounded. Its melody was legible at first, but the other echoes drowned it out until the only thing Maro could hear was a brash, repeating horn. When the music ceased, he picked up his canteen, licked up the last few drops of water left, and began plodding west.

The farmhands emerged from their respective rows as he walked, cheerfully celebrating the day’s end. Maro only watched. Some days he chatted, but today had been an especially useless day. Twelve turns of this, he mused. Twelve harvests, twelve dry seasons, twelve turns away from doing his job. Yet, not even twenty per cent of a life-cycle. One could live for more than seventy through harmony and luck. Despite how little time he’d spent here, the farm began to feel endless.

He could blame the bureaucrats, his team, or his commander. They all played a role in the absolute nightmare of an operation Te‘qaye was. Even thinking about that made his skin crawl. For a moment he saw the city as it had looked from above. Collapsed skyscrapers. Floodlights focused on carnage. Someone shouting over a radio channel drowned in static. The worst part was the flickering of muzzle flashes across the city that he could do nothing about from the air.

Enough of that; there he went thinking again. The road widened near the tower. Half a dozen transports waited there, long electric crawlers with benches welded into their cargo beds. Workers were already climbing aboard, tossing gloves and empty canteens into storage bins. One of the drivers laid on a horn. Maro climbed into the nearest transport and sat at the very back. Around him, people talked about dinner, weekend leave, and a card game somebody owed money on. The trucks lurched west. A comforting breeze picked up. Pala fields rolled by in endless rows. The blurs of stems and bark looked idyllic from this perspective.

He thought back to what Tipéko had said. No one in the Security Service had any reason to come out here except to dump people. Least of all someone like the commander. Maybe he was mistaken. If anyone was coming here, they’d be from the general Security Forces, not the Service. He was sure of it; it had happened before. There was still the matter of the message. Maro wasn’t afraid to admit what he was hoping for, but it probably was just a check-up. With the news he was hearing, there would be no reason to recall anyone. He was stuck here unless he wanted to quit the Service.

By the time they reached the residence hall, the sky had gone purple at the edges. The cafeteria sat at the center of the dorm blocks, low and bright and ugly, with steam crawling from its vents. Workers streamed toward it like fluid.

Inside, the room was loud with trays, voices, and the scrape of benches. Maro collected a bowl of stew, a wedge of flatbread, and pala, of course. He was perusing an open table when Tipéko waved him over.

“Look at that,” Tipéko said. “Another day of hard work. You survived.”

“Barely.”

“Eh. Builds character.”

“I had character.”

“Meh.”

Maro sat across from him. Tipéko had already finished half his meal and was guarding the rest with one arm.

“You answer them yet?”

Maro tore his flatbread in two. “Working on it.”

“So, no.”

“I haven’t read it yet. And I need to consider what I’ll say.”

Tipéko snorted. “You? That’d be a first.”

Maro looked down at his stew. It was too hot to taste anything, but he ate it anyway. For a while they ate without speaking, drinking in the conversations around them. The others were complaining about work gloves and arguing over rules about card games or whether the irrigation pumps would blow out before next turn. Ordinary things. Maro listened and felt, with mild irritation, how easy it would be to belong here if he just bought in.

Tipéko pushed his empty bowl away.

“You know,” he said, “there are worse places to be redundant.”

Maro smiled faintly. “Is that what I am?”

“Eh. You’ve a bad face for cards.”

Maro turned back to look at the crowd.

“Just saying,” Tipéko continued. “Man can do a lot worse than wake up every day to a secure job.”

Maro pursed his lips. Tipéko stood abruptly and collected his tray.

“I’m off. Write something good.”

After dinner, Maro walked back to the dorm block alone. His space was narrow and clean, without much of a personality. There was a cot, a footlocker, and a desk. A square window looked over the dark fields. He sat on the cot and pulled out his slate from the footlocker. After some fiddling, he pulled up the message. No more avoiding it. For a moment he just stared at the shield made of multicolored leaves. Then he noticed the message was from a no-reply address.

Maro Major Lunsi,

Your current placement at the Toshu Pala Farm is under review. Commander Sangoku will arrive tomorrow morning for direct assessment of your recovery and eligibility for future assignments. Please remain on site.

Under review. None of it made sense. He must have been dreaming, too, because he wasn’t jumping for joy at the thought of his recall. Maro set the slate face down on the floor and laid back without undressing. He watched the ceiling until the lights dimmed on their timer. For the first time in twelve turns, he found himself wishing the workday had lasted longer.