Harpies of Planet Sutherland Page 5

  Chapter 5 - Parade Day

  Gavin had not dreamed a rock of a planet like Sutherland could've appeared so magnificent. The men of Sutherland, along with a handful of the stronger, unmarried women, assembled in the capitol's wide thoroughfare running in front of the administrative offices of the United Systems to march in parade and celebrate the completion of their construction contract. Each proudly wore a gun upon his or her hip, part of the payment the United Systems promised for the setters' efforts to carve one more foothold for mankind amid the stars. None of those guns differed one from the other. For as Zeb Griffin taught, each patriot's gun was to be created equal to better insure the rights of all.

  The consistency among those settlers ceased at the guns resting upon their hips. Settlers carried flags of their own design to the parade, refusing to accept the sovereignty symbolized by a common banner. Devices bore white dogs stitched upon a field of calico, flags striped with reds, greens and blues, flags simply decorated with the handprint of the settler who bore them. Only a settler's skill and imagination limited what might be painted onto fabric and brought to the parade as emblem of each settler's commitment to recognize no law other than the one he or she established for him or herself.

  Gavin drooled as he stared at all that color gathered for parade. The enhancement lenses he had that morning pushed onto his eyes increased each hue's vibrancy. The world's edges appeared sharper. Each face was crisper, and the joy of each smile more contagious in the enhancement of the lenses. Gavin's eyes blinked and watered while they adjusted to the new shadows, the richer dimensions, the lenses painted upon his surroundings. Gavin was amazed at the vast details suddenly pulled to his attention - the luster of his dress shirt's fine buttons, the weave of Mr. Abernathy's vest, the proud, square walls Gavin had helped raise around the spaceport. He wondered how he had failed to before notice such intricacies. Old Zeb so often cautioned against the dependency for all the gizmos and gadgets the United Systems proffered. Old Zeb taught that innovation was to often another kind of a shackle. So often Old Zeb warned that governments like the United Systems gave no gift for free. Yet Gavin thought those enhancement lenses might have been an exception as he blinked upon the world around him. The lenses seemed to him a fine reward for completing construction, a fine gift that gave Gavin the ability to truly appreciate what had been raised by his toil.

  "You feeling alright, boy?" Colt elbowed his son in the ribs as Gavin failed to notice when the parade line began marching forward. "Now's not the time to get sick, Gavin. We've completed our construction, but that just means we're going to have to hustle in the weeks ahead to secure our own homesteads."

  Gavin smiled. Even his father's sun-beaten face looked a decade younger through the enhancement lenses. "I'm just admiring it all."

  "Well, don't get too used to the party, boy."

  Gavin chuckled. "I know. I know. Work always to be done. But today is a parade, old man. Today, we celebrate how we've reshaped Sutherland."

  Each settler marched to the cadence of his or her own gait as the parade moved down the wide thoroughfare. A hundred different songs rose over the settlers' heads, blending together into a cacophony of individual babble that would've made old Zeb proud. Gavin pitied those spread about the colonized cosmos who lived beneath the shadow of the United Systems, for they would never understand the thrill Gavin felt as that parade jangled through the capitol. They would never feel the freedom that coursed through Gavin's blood as his feet marched to his own rhythm.

  Gavin thought the United Systems had spared no expense in that parade's ceremony. The yellow and blue of the United Systems' flag adorned the facade of each building the marching settlers passed. Beautiful women smiled and waved from nearly every balcony and window. Children transformed the air over the marchers' heads into a rainbow snowstorm of confetti. Passing the United Systems' municipal building, Gavin grinned to see Emissary Stevens, dressed in his primmest uniform, standing to salute the settlers passing before him, recognizing that he had depended on those who called Zeb their mentor to build his offices and his home. The parade marched onward, passing beneath the archway that fed the settlers onto the athletic fields. A glint of light flashed above Gavin's head, and he looked up into the dusk sky upon a barrage of exploding fireworks. Circles of gold and silver burned and suspended to represent the thirteen colonies previous established by Zeb's settlers. A dozen rockets silently rose, and with a wink and a flash, Zeb Griffin's bearded face sparkled in the night, his features twinkling in starlight like some ancient god looking from the heavens upon his people.

  "Boy, what's befuddled your mind?" Colt shook Gavin out of his stupor. "We don't have time for you to just stare up in the sky. We need to get our supplies back to the homestead before morning."

  "Don't you see the fireworks?"

  Colt peered into Gavin's eyes. "Fireworks? I pray you're not coming down with fever. Too much to do for you to come down with fever."

  "You don't see any of the explosions?"

  "Oh, please don't get sick, son."

  Gavin blinked, and he felt the tug of those enhancement lenses upon his eyes. That tug suggested to Gavin that he had participated in a parade that was very different from the one in which his father had marched. Gavin was surprised to realize he didn't care very much if one was any more real than the other.

  "Did you see all the confetti? Did you see how the United Systems decorated their buildings? Did you see any of their banners?"

  Colt made a disgusted sound and turned before walking away. Gavin circled and counted the few who, like him, remained in the athletic field, their eyes still turned to marvel at the fireworks that erupted in the vision of their enhancement lenses. Gavin took a last look at the sky as a giant fire blossom of red cascaded overhead, and he knew that, very soon, every settler would claim a pair of enhancement lenses the United Systems offered free of charge.

  The lenses filled Gavin's sight with so much color. Sutherland felt reborn, and Gavin was thankful for the transformation the enhancement lenses draped upon the planet. He had worked too hard for Sutherland to remain a simple rock.

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