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The Dissenters of Ni'anay
© Joseph R. Schmidt

Nibwaykay smoothed his arm fur as he watched his wife deliver her stump speech from the podium. He smoothed back his long ears.

In the public meadow, a large crowd had gathered for the rally. The applause and foot stomping diminished, and she continued her speech. "We can feed no more than thirty billion...lest we feed upon the forests of Abojigon," she said with a wry smile and pointed to the giant reeds overhead.

Leafy branches fanned out like spokes and were spaced evenly in radial clumps along their length. The inner structure of the Abojigon collected and filtered rain. They also converted the forces of the winds across the plains for energy. The forests of Abojigon were critical to Ni'anay people.

The long fur on her arms, a womanly trait, wavered in the breeze, burgeoning from the short sleeves of her green jumper. It shone with a grayish-brown translucence, and Nibwaykay found it mesmerizing. Onaykon then slowly pressed her whiskers against her snout, and the crowd quieted.

"Ni'anay cannot support more than she does. I am not without compassion. I am not without love of family. But who will feed us? Our engineers have done as much as they can. Who amongst us shall consume less than what is now provided?"

The crowd erupted, some in agreement, some with discontent. Ni'anay stood in clusters of friends and family. Mothers stood with their litters of six or eight, some with more than one litter.

Onaykon and he had never had children. Her convictions were too strong. Her career too important. It was all true. She had made important changes to the government, changes to ensure just distribution of the food supply. But it was never enough. The Ni'anay lost their people to starvation.

Onaykon's neatly shorn claws scraped the podium, and the noise rasped through the sound system, as piercing as a Great Eagle perched high in the giant reeds, yet he had not seen a Great Eagle for so many green moons. The crowd became silent.

Nibwaykay stood in the shade. He had heard it before and found her antics boring. Onaykon's re-election campaigns for Regional Consociate commenced on the twentieth passing of the green moon. Simply, he was an agricultural lab technician and she was a politician, and for Nibwaykay, it was a time of irritating social discomfort.

"I propose mandatory population control," Onaykon said at last. "Legal ramifications will deter overpopulation. It is the only thing we can do. If they cannot obey the laws, then they can sit in a hole in the ground until they are barren."

The crowd stomped their feet for approval, driving their spurs into the turf. But the discontent shouted and bleated. Then Consociation security arrested several protesters who shouted seditionist slogans. This sort of thing had become commonplace since the previous twenty green moons had passed. Nibwaykay watched with disinterest.

Just before the speech ended, one of the political aides tapped him on his elbow, rubbing the fur along his forearm. Nibwaykay leapt upon the platform and stood behind his wife while the crowd cheered. He placed his hand near her puffy tail and felt the muscles beneath her soft fur suddenly tense. She shot him a sidelong look while her pink nostrils flared, but amusement glimmered in her amber eyes, and her whiskers twitched.

"I must return to work," Nibwaykay said, speaking into her lovely, drooping ear. "I have important seed projects to complete."

She found his arm and dragged him firmly to stand beside her. "Wave."

It was not a request. He waved.

She continued to wave to the crowd. "You did not shear your claws." Still she smiled but her eyes said everything else.

"No." He shrugged and smiled insincerely. "I did not." There were certain personal freedoms he would never compromise, even in this electric political atmosphere.

"Two shorn and two not--grotesquely feral." Onaykon elbowed him in his brisket, through his thinnest fur. "And at your age."

"Spare me the disdain, my love. I'm appealing to the younger crowd."

"Put your claws down. You look like my opponent."

He gave her an extra pat, this time lasciviously close to her tail. "I'll see you tonight."

She spun quickly and grabbed his arm. "Wait. Ogimay has a special project for you. One I know I can trust you with."

Nibwaykay hesitated, thinking of his manager, Ogimay, at the lab. Of course after all this time, his wife knew the man. But she never before expressed interest in agriculture genetics and seed supply protection. Nibwaykay nodded. "As you wish," he said.

He left the platform through the thick crowd and was intercepted by a young woman with shaved forearms, the sign of a Dissenter. "What new course will your wife propose against the pockets of resistance?"

The advisors had prepared him for this question. "The Dissenters continue to flounder because they have no real roots. The Consociation works hard for the benefit of all. That is why their leadership is the only sensible solution."

Meanwhile, she had transmitted her identity to his handheld, as was customary for the media during interviews.

"What do you think of your wife's new policy for population control?"

He then recognized her from countless past interviews. He flipped a look at his handheld. "Well...Debwe, I think the policy is very logical, and the polls show wide support for such a common sense solution." That was how they had rehearsed his answer.

"The courts have ruled that our freedom to reproduce is an inalienable right. Your wife's new policy seems to be a drastic departure from her previous agenda."

Nibwaykay flexed his nose rapidly. Surprisingly, her...Debwe's question hadn't been on the practice panel. "Look, it's a complicated issue. The bottom line is that if we don't control the population, we won't be able to feed--"

"Yes-yes, of course." Debwe looked irritated. "Is this how she will use her seniority in the Consociation? To stifle the natural instincts of our people?"

Just then the crowd erupted on the far side of the meadow, and Nibwaykay used the distraction to slip away. The protesters, the Dissenters, became rowdier and security began subduing them with electrical devices.

He understood his wife's politics, yet he acknowledged quietly to himself that something had changed for this political cycle. Onaykon had said the same thing before, but today her words had become bolder and more pointed.

###

Nibwaykay merged with the masses, mothers with their litters clogged the flow. He trotted and hopped along the footpaths between the polyculture fields where workers toiled with shiny tools at the commingled crops. He noted green beans, cabbage, and persimmon trees, recalling his involvement in agragenetic projects with each. He wondered at the possibility that his work lay planted before him.

Overpopulation had forced the Ni'anay to maximize the food production, planting efficiently and pervasively, engulfing the planet's surface to that end. Oceans had been filled by mountains that had been leveled.

The busy trotting path diverged into the ground where the commuting populace flowed. Then it turned and split again and again, until at last, he scanned his badge at a portal. In he crawled, into a seat within the capsule. There he waited for others to join him. The tail-stopper echoed in the gravity-vacuum transport tube, and his ears felt the pressure change. Three soft tones rang. As a cork from a bottle, a sudden sucking sound echoed, and the bottom fell out of the world. Gravity, dampened by air, pulled the capsule through the tube, he and hundreds of Ni'anay.

###

Contemplating his wife's unusual request for an agragenetic project, Nibwaykay returned to work thirty-three levels below the surface.

As he trotted into the lab, he stole a glance through the viewing panes to find his manager, Ogimay, staring down upon him. Gray fur ringed his muzzle, and his whiskers were white. Presently, his ears lay back flatter than etiquette allowed.

Ogimay came through the lab door very quickly, and Nibwaykay smoothed the short fur on his forearms while he waited.

"What took you so long?" Ogimay asked.

"Dissenters at the rally." Nibwaykay shrugged slightly. "It took time to get through the crowd with security there."

"Won't those people realize we're doing what we can? Still, there's lab work to be done." Ogimay thumped his heel spur on the cleanable hard floor. It scraped some and clicked. "You have a special project from the Consociation."

"That's what I heard." Nibwaykay ran his unshorn claws along the front of his lab coat to close it. "Why are you so upset?"

"You've fallen behind. The others have complained." Ogimay's tail thwacked once. "I can't keep this up. You'll have to make-up the work tonight."

"You know that's not the agreement." Nibwaykay strode to his bench to begin his work.

Ogimay approached from behind. "Your absences for Onaykon's campaign are dragging the department down."

"Fund raiser tonight. Gotta go. I can work late tomorrow."

Ogimay had wanted to say something, but his handheld buzzed and instead he inspected the message. Then as he turned away to return to his observation office, he said, "I reviewed your new project. Make sure you leave the journal on." Then he went through the door.

The Consociation tested all Ni'anay for career placement. Ogimay was an agragenetic engineer, and he must have scored high in management, but Nibwaykay opined that the man had not shown the slightest aptitude for getting the most out of his personnel.

Nibwaykay sighed and opened the secured file for review. If he refused, he would not get the special bonus, a generous fee for keeping it quiet.

It was a virus-cabbage project. He needed to insert a virus into the genetic chain of Blue Cabbage. It all looked pretty standard, things he had done before in order to protect cabbage from various diseases. He only took the theoretical designs and then applied them for production. But through his career he had come to understand much more than application. Still this was just a ho-hum virus-cabbage project.

Despite, or in spite of, what Ogimay had demanded, Nibwaykay made sure to shut off the automated journal. That way he could keep his work to him self and upload the automated notes to the system later. Why had the files been locked? Why had his wife been involved? He began his work.

When he took lunch--peas, string beans, and carrots, he watched the videocast on the screen in the lunchroom. The top story reported the arrest of the Dissenters at his wife's political rally. The talking head claimed it had involved hundreds of protesters.

While he ate his lunch, he thought about the density of the crowd and the trouble he had leaving the area.

A colleague retrieved her lunch from the cabinet. When she turned around, she hesitated for a moment. She flicked her ear. "Is that what happened? I mean, at the rally."

Nibwaykay nibbled his last carrot. "I think so."

"Don't you know?"

He didn't remember that many protesters, and the video showed only Onaykon while the security swarmed until the crowd turned into a full riot. Had he left too early and missed it? Or was this just a means for political commentary by the Consociation? The government had gained so much control over the media that he could no longer be sure.

Nibwaykay put his lunch container away and shook his head. "I got out of there as fast as I could."

"Voted for her last time. Not so sure this time."

He wanted to ask her why not but she had left too quickly.

###

Back at his bench, Nibwaykay prepared the seeds for injection. He pre-mapped the locations of insertion for the robotic instruments.

There had to be more to it than just this, he decided. It was a simple project--too simple.

He dug into the file a little deeper and found the Blue Cabbage genetic map. He then found the virus specifications, but it lacked a proper name. Someone had discovered or invented it once and must have named it. No matter. He searched the database from the other way, using selected specifications until he narrowed the list.

Ogimay approached from behind. Nibwaykay heard the clicking of his spurs. "Aren't you done yet?"

"No. I ran into a little snag." Nibwaykay quickly hid his search display.

His ears twitched as he turned to Ogimay, who stood so close that his musk filled Nibwaykay's nostrils. Ogimay continued to click his spur but softly. "You're not the engineer, so don't be doing anything other than what's been instructed."

"No, I'm not the engineer. That would be your job, but you don't really do that either."

Ogimaa's whickers slowly moved up and down, and Nibwaykay knew he had his old boss flustered. "Your journal is off."

"I don't like you watching everything I do. It makes me nervous. I'll link the journal later."

"Policy says you have to keep it on, except for personal business."

Nibwaykay's ears flattened, he realized. "I see your name in the file."

Ogimay's brown eyes widened. Then his eyelids fluttered twice. "Just finish it and keep it to yourself."

Nibwaykay clicked his two unshorn claws on the lab bench. "It might not be tonight. Like I said, I ran into a problem."

Ogimay paused. "It shouldn't be that complicated. I thought you would get it started tonight." He stomped off.

So there was something untidy about the secret project and Ogimay was in on it. He wanted it done and out of his department as soon as possible. This had not been the first time Nibwaykay performed secret lab work for the Consociation--he liked the special bonuses, but it was the first authorized by his wife, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it.

Nibwaykay, cognizant of Ogimay's scrutiny, performed the virus insertion according to design. When he finished four seeds, he took a break. Later he would prepare the automated robotics by combining the procedures of the first four and let the system complete the remaining four hundred or so seeds.

He opened the database search from earlier and sifted through the matches to the virus specifications. There were several strains that matched. He found further commonality amongst those and reduced the list to five.

When he heard Ogimay, Nibwaykay returned to teaching the robot. Ogimay stood at the station and studied the graphical logic as Nibwaykay continued to program the sequence.

Ogimay purged his nostrils and smoothed his whiskers. "Nibwaykay, you do good work.... You will start the production tonight before you leave, I assume."

"Of course."

Then Ogimay went away, and Nibwaykay returned to his reverse database search.

All but one of the five viruses occurred naturally. Logically, he selected the engineered virus in order to find out more about it. The file was locked.

He flexed his nostrils quickly and his heart raced.

It was best to forget it, and take the bonus. Besides, if he pried too hard, someone would notice and link him to the attempted intrusion.

But he knew Ogimay's current password; he had watched him enter it recently, a habit, one he had found useful on other occasions.

What use would it be to him to know what the virus did? It probably killed a harmful insect. Maybe it cured a genetic disease that would deplete the supply of Blue Cabbage. Any perturbance in the food chain would be lethal to many.

That was the function of their department, to ensure the stability of the seed supply. So why had this project been assigned to him secretly by an elected official of the Consociation? Why had Onaykon given him this project herself?

He opened the file using his manager's password. There it was, as plain as could be: the virus attacked the reproduction system of the Ni'anay, rendering the infected sterile.

Nibwaykay quickly closed the file, and he knew it wouldn't matter. He'd seen it; they knew he'd seen it. He looked over his shoulder through the observation window to find Ogimay preoccupied at his desk. Nibwaykay opened the file again, but this time he captured the information to his handheld and then onto a portable memory device, which had been banned from the facility. When that was done, he captured the project file.

He wasn't sure what he was going to do about the sterility virus. For now, he definitely would not add the virus to four hundred seeds. So he changed a sequence in his robotic program that would render the seeds useless and then started the automated program to modify the remaining four hundred.

He slipped the test seeds along with the memory device into a baggy and stuffed it in his upper cheek. When he looked up, Ogimay had left his desk, so Nibwaykay resolutely made for the door.

"Oh, Nibwaykay, I need to talk to you," Ogimay said awkwardly as he filled the exit.

"I started the production if that's what you're worried about."

Ogimay looked perplexed. "You did, already?"

"Excuse me. I have a fund raiser tonight." Nibwaykay moved to squeeze through the door, and Ogimay gave way some, just enough for him to pass and begin walking away.

Ogimay grabbed his handheld and read a message. He looked very worried, and Nibwaykay turned the other way, increasing his stride into half-hop.

His musk had already increased. It did at each subsequent security checkpoint on the way out of the facility. When would the alarm sound? When would he be forced to his knees by electrical stimulus?

###

All the way home, Nibwaykay felt watched.

He arrived at his upscale burrow, where he entered through their private vegetable patch and through the back door. He acknowledged the Head Staff, who presented a plate of freshly picked lantanas and dahlias. He almost placed his handheld on the preparation table, but instead he stuffed it back in his pocket. He thanked the Head Staff, took the plate, and began nibbling, relieved to be in his own burrow. Sitting comfortably on his haunches in the dining room, he relaxed.

This hole had been more comfortable when it had been smaller, but Onaykon had pressured the lateral neighbors to sell. She could have purchased several residences below. Nibwaykay hadn't complained. It was such a luxury to have immediate access to the open air.

Onaykon knew what she wanted; she got what she wanted. That was her role, and she fulfilled it. These things he knew.

Her goals were no different from his and others. The population had to be controlled or so many would suffer. Why had the file been so startling? Something had to give.

Clawed hands stroked his fur between his ears and down the back of his neck. He hadn't heard his wife approach from behind. He felt Onaykon press against his back and her arms wrap around him. He also heard several spurs outside the door.

"What has you so glum?" she asked softly.

Nibwaykay said nothing.

"We'll have to leave soon." Yet she held on. "Your jumper has been laid out for you."

"Good."

She let go.

He stood and faced her.

She wore a jumper with an amber hue, patterned with straight lines, short sleeved, of course. "Your face is sagging," she said and smiled. "You'll have to do better than that. We need the funding."

"Who will be the first?"

One of her ears flopped as she tilted her head. "Who will what? What do you--"

He stepped forward. "Who will be the first to be sterilized?"

She stepped backwards tentatively, shaking her head. Then she looked away, out of the dining room to something, or someone. She returned her gaze to him. Her amber eyes were so sad. "How?"

He held the portable memory device in his two apposing shorn claws. "It's all right here. I know what it is."

Still, she looked hurt and unsure. Her head tilted more, and he watched her whiskers tremble. "Nibwaykay, you must have known it would come to this."

He sat on his haunches with an ear in his claws. "All I want to know is who will be first?"

Onaykon drew in her breath slowly, deliberately, and stood tall. "The Dissenters, of course." Then she turned away. "Who else?" When she turned back around, she pulled at the curling fur on her forearms. "Tell me you are with me."

Nibwaykay watched silently while Onaykon's eyes searched him. He thought of those hard years they had spent before her political success, how he had supported her efforts on his meager income, and the earthen floor of their first burrow. He had always been with her. "I don't know." The floor seemed too polished.

"I've worked so hard for this and done so much already. I've made compromises. And my work is just beginning." Onaykon gently reached for that spot between his ears, but Nibwaykay pushed her arm aside.

"Nibwaykay," she whispered. Then she retracted her arm to hold it against her brisket. "What does it matter how it is done? Die or not be born."

"That is not your choice to make."

"I have made that choice."

"But we could afford a litter now."

Her shoulders slumped and she shut her eyes. "How would that look?" She opened them to reveal sparkling amber. "How can you be so selfish?"

"Selfish?" He had never considered himself in such a way. "I..." He scratched his chin with his claws.

She clicked her spur. "You don't have a choice!"

The Head Staff shuffled through the kitchen door and headed straight for him.

"Nibwaykay," she coaxed. "Give me the files before you do something we both regret."

He sat stunned while he searched his wife's somber eyes. What could she mean?

The Head Staff reached suddenly for Nibwaykay's arm, but Nibwaykay jabbed his spurred heel into the man's thigh, forcing him to fall back. Nibwaykay hopped through the kitchen to the back door.

"Quickly! Catch him!" she called. "Jam his handheld."

He bound through the garden, past his private source of food. What was he doing? Where was he going?

###

Nibwaykay merged with the trotting flow of commuting agricultural workers. On his handheld, he prepared a transmission and message, 'In the meadow, soon', and he sent it. Shortly after that, the device went offline, so he decided Onaykon had jammed it.

Onaykon. He was still in a daze. His wife of so many years.

He passed a stand of Abojigon reeds just off the trail, a forest adjacent to the sewage pond in coordination with the upscale burrows. He merged with the people on the trail and made no fuss in the crowd, while Onaykon's staff too blended in but followed. Past the Abojigon, the trotting path turned into the ground, into a commuting station. He knew this one well and wound his way to a tube with few riders. He left his wife's confused staff in the tunnel.

While transferring tubes, he pushed his way through a band of excited protesters. He continued to wind his way to the public meadow near the Abojigon forest where the political rally had been earlier that day. For some reason the trip had been extraordinarily short with fewer riders than he expected. In the forest, he found a thick and tall reed on which to lean and wait and watch. Before long, Debwe the media woman from earlier appeared in the nearly empty meadow, looking around nervously.

Nibwaykay emerged from the shade of the giant reeds.

Debwe recognized him and grabbed his arm stiffly. "We cannot stay here in the open."

"Did you get the transmission?" he asked.

She tugged hard and he followed. Then she looked at him incredulously. "Don't you have a handheld?"

He took it out of his pocket. "Onaykon jammed it."

Through amassing protestors, they reached the forest on the other side of the meadow. Debwe stopped him. "So you don’t know?"

He spun around to find himself surrounded by many in a circle. "What's going on?"

"I released it," Debwe said as she stood in front of him.

Nibwaykay apprised all who surrounded him--Dissenters with their shaven forearms. "Already?"

"What did you think I would do with it?"

"I don't know. So soon."

"They will kill you if they find you."

"My wife? No." He shook his head and wanted to walk away, but he couldn't. "I don't think so."

"You can come with us."

"With you? I couldn't. I mean it's not the way I live."

"Debwe," one of the men called. "They've got a lock." Then the man twisted his head around, flopping his ears wildly. "They're in the forest!"

"We must run."

Debwe sprung into the open meadow and into a crowd of protesters who held seditionist signs. The circle of Dissenters followed her. Nibwaykay felt unshorn claws grip his arms. He followed and stumbled to keep up and they dragged him.

How did they hope to outrun the Consociation security forces? But when Nibwaykay looked around, he saw endless faces in the crowd of protesters. Was there hope? Did he even want to leave his wife? He wanted none of this running away. What difference did it make how the population was controlled? Was forced sterility worse than starvation? It would not have mattered to him if he had listened to Onaykon...if he would have gone with her plan.

The air pressed down from above as he had never before felt, and his instincts forced him to duck and roll. The meadow near his feet exploded with dirt and blood as giant claws crushed those who had dragged at his arms. The flap of furious wings forced him against the ground, the shrill screech of the Great Eagle pierced his ears, and he lay stunned in terror.

The protesting crowd, thousands of them with litters of children, stood around him cautiously in a pressing ring. Additional Great Eagles landed, brown with gray, glinting in the sun.

Onaykon sat mounted upon the back, strapped to a saddle. "You cannot run, husband. You are making a mistake." She pulled the reins and the giant eagle strutted to one side. "Come back to me. I need you."

Nibwaykay stirred, but remained absurdly prostrate. If he went now, he could take her hand. He reached for her--two shorn claws and two not. But he stopped. "No. I don't want to be what you are."

Onaykon howled in her fury. He staggered to his feet as the angry mass of protesters pressed. The Great Eagle flapped and beat its wings, but the Ni'anay tore at its feathers.

Yet she waited for him. "Nibwaykay!" She struggled to keep the Great Eagle under her as it stomped with its claws, crushing everyone it could.

They were going to kill her...and he couldn't allow it. What had he done? They would kill him too. He reached for her again. Claws grabbed his arms and jumper, and he struggled against them.

"Drag him away! Drag him!" Debwe shouted.

Onaykon and the Great Eagle fell, and Nibwaykay watched for only a moment until she vanished in the mob of blood and gore and long feathers.

The Dissenters dragged him.

###

Somewhere deep in the Aybojigon forest they stopped and rested. He lay in the moist dirt near a mushroom crop. The others ate while he thought of Onaykon and his home, replete with his loss.

Slowly, litters of children emerged from the forest, ranging greatly in age. Most joined with their parents. Some were intercepted, those who had lost a parent or both. And the pain ripped Nibwaykay raw. What had he done?

"Stand up," Debwe demanded.

Nibwaykay remained where he lay. "Why?" he hissed and moaned. "Why did you save me? To make me suffer the rest of my days?"

"No," she said.

Nibwaykay tilted his head and stared at her.

Debwe surveyed her people with deliberation, with visible remorse, and then she stepped closer to tower over him. "I understand your sacrifice." She left little doubt for him, he had given up so much. Yet she had given more; it was in the way the fur around her brown eyes drooped. Somehow Debwe held to her convictions despite everything.

"The day will come," Debwe said, "when we will need an antibody."

"Where will we go?"

"The forest parks set aside by the Consociation are vast." She took him by his hand, pulled him to his feet, and twisted his palm up. Nibwaykay looked to her and she to him, and he saw at last a spark of fire in her eyes.

Nibwaykay felt strangely liberated. Freedom was more important to him, more important to the people of Ni'anay, than his extravagant life.

"They can't catch us in the thicket," she said.

He exhaled and nodded once--and then she shaved his forearm.