Free Paragenesis: Stories of the Dawn of Wraeththu by Storm Constantine Page A

castle visible in the distant
background.
    “Don’t let Nolan see you
burning those books,” Dawson sneered. “He’ll cry.”
    The crew guffawed loudly; I did
my best not to react.
    “Do you like books, Nolan?”
Acorn asked brightly.
    “Yeah…” I mumbled
self-consciously. “Love ‘em.”
    “And burning them bothers you?”
Maelduin asked, an eyebrow arched.
    The dark one called Inari was
suddenly alert, roused and now focused on the conversation.
    “Well,” I said carefully, “I
understand why we have to burn them, fuel being as scarce as it is,
but…. I dunno, it just seems wrong… and sad. It’s such a
waste.”
    “A waste?” Maelduin cocked his
head to one side.
    “There is so much art in them,
so much information, and so much to learn from them. They represent
most of the knowledge and ideas that the world has ever had. If we
burn them, that information and those ideas are gone.”
    “Who cares?” said Mouse as he
threw a few more books into the flames. “It’s just human knowledge.
Humans are finished. We’re Wraeththu – we’re a million times
better.”
    “But, we were human,” I
couldn’t help responding. “All of us. We can’t forget that. How are
we going to know we’re better unless we can prove we’ve gone
farther than humans did?” I pointed to one of the books he’d tossed
into the pyre, Basic Math and Pre-Algebra “Basic Math isn’t
going to change just because we’re now Wraeththu, nor will other
basic facts…”
    “Humans are stupid fucks,”
Mouse pronounced darkly.
    “They weren’t always,” I
insisted. This was a subject I felt strongly about. “Humans were
around for thousands of years. They invented all sorts of brilliant
things; they put people on the moon, created great works of art,
and built strong civilizations… Humans weren’t always like they are
now. I know there were always wars and conflict, empires rose and
fell, but there were always groups, and individuals that were
trying to make things right… until something happened and all of
society fell apart. Civilisation failed completely and Wraeththu
emerged.
    “If we don’t preserve the
written human record, we may never know who we are and why we are
the way we are. If we want to understand today, we have to
understand yesterday! Learning about all of humanity will help us
know what things we must do and what things we need to avoid. We’re
moving out of human history into our own history…”
    I suddenly realised how much I
had said and how enthusiastically. Shame and fear silenced me then,
but I was over the moon when I saw Inari’s swarthy face break out
into a wide grin; he appeared more engaged at this moment than he’d
been all afternoon. He leaned over and grabbed one of the
paperbacks. He held it up for me to see – it was another romance
novel – one whose cover depicted a muscular man with a cowboy hat
staring stoically off into the sunset as a woman with long hair
clung to him.
    “And what, pray tell,” Inari
asked with a mischievous grin and a twinkle in his eye, “will be
learned from this… literature?”
    I grinned back, thoroughly
delighted. “Perhaps, some day in the future, a Wraeththu scholar
will want to compare…”
    “SHUT UP!” Dawson roared.
    I shut up immediately – damn
the booze for having sent my inhibitions and instincts for
self-preservation packing!
    “SHUT UP!” His voice was a
shrill shriek, his face was red and his limbs flailed like those of
a child before a tantrum. “No one gives a fuck what you think …
you’re just a fucking piece of shit … SHUT THE FUCK UP!!”
    I ducked and rolled backwards
out of the circle. The empty bottle Dawson had hurled at me glanced
off my shoulder and skittered across the floor.
    Dawson’s abuse continued as I
retreated behind the rows of stacked pallets. Howls of derisive
laughter followed me as I stepped out into the freshness of cool
evening air. Gangs are ‘substitute families’, my ass.
    I swung