Collision of Worlds

"When I went to the market today they didn't even have bread."

"No bread?" Carl Naylor echoed, raising an eyebrow toward his wife. "How could they run out of bread?"

They stood in the kitchen of their little home on Tellus—the industrial planet that served as Darius's capital—in the city of Breitenberg, preparing dinner. Outside, the perpetual rust-colored haze that hung over the city had deepened with the evening, turning the light through their kitchen window the color of old copper. Tellus had always been an industrial world—the foundries and smelting plants that ringed Breitenberg pumped iron particulate into the atmosphere day and night, and the rain that fell most afternoons left ochre streaks on every surface. The locals called it blood rain, though no one remembered when the nickname had started. It stained clothes, corroded metal, and gave the entire city a faintly metallic taste that clung to the back of the throat.

Carl trimmed half-rotten vegetables at the sink, examining each carefully for glaring imperfections before dropping them into a bowl along with the others. The sour-sweet smell of decay hung in the air, mingling with the musty dampness that never quite left their walls—a problem on Tellus, where the iron-heavy moisture worked its way into everything.

As Darius's rebellion went on these last two years, the tolerable level for rot and decay on these vegetables had loosened. Now, he accepted anything that wouldn't make his family sick.

"I don't know. But they had none, and no one knew when they would be able to bake more."

"Damn," he said, dropping another spear of asparagus into the bowl. "Things keep getting worse. First they ran out of most dairy products, and now bread."

"That isn't even the half of it," Kate replied. "By all accounts, the rationing has only just begun."

"What are they planning to cut back on next?"

"Meat, maybe," Kate answered. "Water? If it's something we need, they'll ration it or hike up the prices until we can't afford it."

"I'll get a second job if I have to," Carl said. "If we need the money."

"The money won't matter," Kate said, leaning heavily against the counter. "There won't be anything left to buy."

Alaina knelt in the living room next to the kitchen door, listening to her parents speak. The television played behind her, but she ignored it to eavesdrop on her parents' conversation. Her parents didn't like her doing that, but she couldn't help herself.

They always assumed she didn't know what was going on out in the world and that she didn't understand grown-up things, but she did. She hated being treated like a seven-year-old girl.

Never mind that she was one.

In a short while, they would call her in for dinner to eat the meal they had prepared, but judging by the meager supplies her mother had returned home with from the market, Alaina expected a small meal.

They were all small meals nowadays.

"The food lines are the worst of it," Kate continued. "Having to wait for hours and then only being allowed to purchase a small amount of anything. They only let you buy enough to take care of half of your family."

"I waited three hours for a cod filet yesterday," Carl agreed. "Three hours for one filet, and by the time I got there, they were all sold out. The woman three spots ahead of me got the last one." His hands stilled on the cutting board. His shoulders sagged. "Never been through anything like it."

"How are we supposed to feed our children?" Kate asked. She spoke lower now, a thickness in her voice. Alaina had to strain to hear. "Or keep them clothed. I've had to mend Jessie's shirt three times in the last week."

A long moment passed, the only sound them working side by side. Alaina didn't like when her parents got sentimental like this, but it was a lot better than them being mad at each other. That happened a lot nowadays, too.