The author would like to thank moncrief_the_advocate for insightful input.
*****
The Third Ring
Urta was a verdant planet, but its most common proteins were toxic to humans. Colonists were genetically altered so they and their descendants could thrive on Urta's native bounty. The scientists and engineers were supposed to be temporary residents on Urta. They were unaltered and survived there only because of the antidote they took every day.
Then came The Collapse. Communications with Earth ceased and the great ships came no more. The engineers and scientists knew that they would live only as long as their supply of antidote lasted, so they committed their remaining time to one purpose. They gave the colonists the knowledge and tools to sustain their culture. Then they were gone.
*****
Forgive me, for I am but a simple teller of ancient tales. I'm old now and modern life passes me by. I study the old texts so that on long winter nights like this I might relate them to you. Hush now that I may speak.
There was a time on Urta when heroes walked among men. In those old days Urta had but two rings, and they were both yellow. The third ring—the blue ring—was built of love. Tales of those times have long been forbidden by the believers in Rational Order, because it is love that they most fear.
Tannehill was a great hero, and our stories of him could fill a month of winter nights. They say that he lived where the First Village touched the forest of Singing Trees, and his home was forever graced by the little lights—the spirits of the forest and the sky. He was a young, broad-shouldered man, and a man of many means. The unmarried women of the village wanted him.
"What am I supposed to do?" Tannehill asked. He paced in front of his house with one of the forest's little lights perched unnoticed on his shoulder and gestured to the old woman who sat by the door.
She was Doctor, who would be the last of the heroes. It was Doctor whose journals contain the stories I tell.
"The girls aren't coy about what they want," Tannehill said. "I have constant attention; I can't walk to the market without being touched. I find gifts waiting here almost every day when I come home. They leave notes that say things like, 'If you like this then you'll love my other gifts.' It makes it hard for me to get my work done."
Doctor chuckled and said, "Most men would envy you. Don't you have sex with the colonists?"
"No," Tannehill said, then corrected himself. "I did at first, with the girls that worked at Planetary Station before we lost contact, but things are different now." He stopped in front of Doctor and said, "I think I need a wife to keep the girls away and to help me here. I don't have time to do all the things I need to get done."
Doctor sat back in her chair and watched as Tannehill went back to pacing. She said, "We'll only be here for a few more years. They know that, right? Do they also know that you can't give them children?"
"They know we won't be here," Tannehill said. "I impress that on them every day. They need to learn everything we can teach them and I think they understand."
He stopped his pacing again and turned to Doctor to say, "I'm not sure they understand the genetic problem. Some of them tell me they'll give me babies, but we're 100% incompatible, right?"
Doctor nodded and said. "Almost. Because of the colonists' engineered genetics, their immune systems should reject any ovum that you fertilize; it shouldn't implant. There have been a few instances of unaltered men getting colonists pregnant and the outcomes weren't good for the woman or for the fetus."
"I don't want anything like that to happen," Tannehill said. "I know I'll leave a wife behind, but I want to leave her rich and healthy."
Doctor shrugged and told him, "We have a simple blood test. Politics among the colonists might be a bigger problem. Their marriages aren't usually romantic affairs. They're arranged contracts between a man and the woman's family; the family agrees to let the man have her under the condition that he supports her. It's then her duty to keep his home. From what you've said it sounds like there'll be a lot of competition for that contract. If people feel cheated, then it could be hell for your new wife."
Tannehill shook his head and asked, "How do I give them all a chance and still give myself any chance of finding one good woman?"
"It might not be as challenging as you think," Doctor said. She reached out with a thin hand and plucked at Tannehill's tunic. His clothes were shabby and worn from neglect. "You've been too busy to take care of yourself. Give them a test. Narrow your list down to women who can take care of you."
Doctor studied him once more and asked, "What keeps you so busy?"
"I teach every day," Tannehill said. "I want them to know how and why things work, and how to make the tools they'll need when we're gone." He glanced at the light on his shoulder and to the village to see if anyone was about to interrupt them. "And one more thing. Let me show you."
He led Doctor into his house, which was more a workshop than a home. The air was warmed and filled with the hum of machines that cluttered every available space, and tools rested in the corners and on shelves.
Doctor glanced around and laughed then told him, "You're a long way from being ready for a wife. You need to give her at least a bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen, not just a cot in a workshop."
Tannehill gave Doctor an embarrassed shrug. "I guess I really haven't thought that far," he said. He touched a small device to make a drawer slide open and told her "I've become almost obsessed by this." He removed a circular plate from the drawer, placed it under a scope, and its magnified image appeared in the air above his work bench.
Doctor caught her breath. The image showed the surface of a bright blue metallic foil etched with an intricate, crystalline pattern. "What is that?" she asked.
"I call it 'the blue metal' for lack of a real name," Tannehill said. "It looks and acts like a metal, but I extracted it from leaf litter on the forest floor and I'm not sure what it is. I tested a lot of different tissues and detected it in every one—at least in small amounts."
"You should present this at our next conference," Doctor said. "Is it good for anything?"
"I'm not sure yet," Tannehill said. He turned off the scope, slipped a finger under the light on his shoulder and guided it to the edge of the foil.
The little light flared and other lights blinked on around them. Doctor snapped her head about as they appeared, and Tannehill touched her shoulder to reassure her. "The blue metal might work like an antenna that my little friend here just used it to call his friends. I don't know yet whether that's true, and I'm a long way from knowing how."
Of course, Tannehill only got the blue metal in the small amounts he could refine in his own home. There were few people in the time of heroes and they didn't have the cities or the industry that we have now. They prospered through community and craft.
Among the young women the crafts of weaving, of decorating fabric, and of sewing clothes were prized. People believed that a woman who mastered those crafts could certainly take care of a husband, so when Tannehill chose a single test to select a wife, he chose to test her weaving.
Tannehill spoke to the family councils when they gathered in the square and announced his decision. "A week from today," Tannehill said, "I will select a wife from among your best weavers. On that day send your eligible daughters to me with samples of their finest fabrics."
Imagine the frenzy that caused among the unmarried women! They selected the best ripened fiber pods to spin into thread, and worked night and day to produce their finest cloth.
Kylie wanted Tannehill as much as the others, but she was not one of the workers. Since she was young, Kylie found ways to get what she wanted without work. You may know people like her. She lied and cheated, and got what she wanted on the strength of other people's labor. No-one who knew her trusted her.
"Why should I worry?" Kylie asked her older sister. "We all know that you're the best weaver here. I hid your finest cloth where you won't find it, and tomorrow I'll take that to Tannehill."
Keren was everything that Kylie was not, and she was loved by those who knew her. She rolled her eyes at her little sister and said, "You can only tell me that because our mother can't stand to think that you are who you are. If I showed you to be a lying thief, it would be like stabbing her in the heart."
"Odd, isn't it?" Kylie asked, "How Mom's weakness always works out in my favor? You take her to the station for a week so Doctor can treat her, and look! Now I have your best cloth and you can't show Tannehill anything but your second best."
Keren wasn't as worried as you might think. Her second-best was better than anything but her best, and it was already sewn into a beautifully decorated tunic. She would wear the tunic to show her work to Tannehill.
Weeks passed from the time Doctor pointed out that Tannehill's house wasn't ready for a wife. As you might think, Tannehill used that time well. His home had two new rooms when the girls lined up at his door with their samples in hand. The new rooms were for the tools and machines that cluttered his house, but they hadn't been moved yet.
That was part of Tannehill's plan. What the girls saw when they stepped one at a time into his house was not the home of a wealthy man like they expected, but the same workshop that Doctor saw. He measured each girl's response by the direction her eyes went and the expression on her face—surprise or disappointment, concern or disgust.
Tannehill examined their samples, made notes to himself and sent them away. They stepped from the house confused and uncertain—except for Kylie, of course.
"He chose me!" Kylie announced to the girls in line behind her, and then laughed at their expressions. The ones who knew her were sure it was a lie. Had Keren been there she could have told the rest of them, but Keren was home where their mother had become confused and needed her help.
