Dystopyum (The D-ot Hexalogy Book 1) Read Free

one of them was rarely in perfect
health on a given day. Body sores with various etiologies, coming from
any number of pathogens were common problems. Sores would start
under the scales, and spread to the softer skin underneath. Sometimes a
D’otian would have a section of scales surgically removed, just to let the
skin dry out and heal. These sores would eventually overcome most
people in old age, if something else did not kill them first.
Laws, which, in the end, discouraged childbirth, were hardly needed.
Conceiving a child was difficult. There was still a relatively high death
rate among babies from disease. Females’ breasts had slowly ceased
functioning over the last five thousand years. It was now assumed that
they never worked.
On the ride home traveling westward, Griswolt and Martha were
sitting together in the exposed back seat of their contiss-drawn taxi. It was
pleasant to ride on the outside of the taxi, facing backwards. This was the
way they would typically choose to ride, if weather permitted. The night
air was cool, and the lesser moon was out and full. The dark rolling hills
to the north lay in contrast to the streetlights and traffic ahead as one
entered the NOV’s capital city, Justilant. Not only was Justilant home to
the central committee of the NOV, it was also the location of Strakna
Laboratories. This is where they produced the “hundred-year poison”
vaccines for the entire nation.
The homes, being underground, were marked by their mounds a few
feet in height, the outline of which typically reflected the structure
beneath. The entry door enclosures usually extended ten to twelve feet
aboveground, with similar dimensions in width and depth. The entrance
was characteristically the tallest structure of a house.
As they approached the city, they would see more and more “aboveground” homes. The wealthy owned those homes. One could occasionally
see this type of domicile in the upscale neighborhoods outside the city, as
well. The average temperature range was sixty-seven degrees in a day,
with the average temperature being anywhere from thirty degrees to as
high as seventy, depending on the season and location. It was much more
efficient to build underground, and take advantage of the temperature
stability there.
To the east, the rolling hills became a harsh landscape of solid ironbased shafts jutting thousands of feet jaggedly into the sky. These were
the outgrowths of highly magnetized iron-based vein formations that had
been forced vertically up through the ground by opposing magnetic
polarities below. The iron shafts were made of a crystalline matrix, and so
they were squared off on the sides, and extremely sensitive to magnetic
forces. Some were still very active, rising almost fifty feet in a single
year.
Not much was said on the way home until Martha spoke first — and
then wished she had not. “Thankth for thticking up for me in there,” she
said with her swollen, wounded tongue.
Griswolt was just waiting — “What the hell was all that about? I’ve
never been so humiliated in my life! You looked like a damn love-lover
up in ‘ere! You could have gotten us both into DeathBT!”
His voice was as deep as his body was big. He shifted his large frame
in her direction, waving his hefty dark gray hands for emphasis. They hit
a bump in the road. The metal alloy wheels of most means of transportation had only their suspensions to buffer the roads.
Griswolt’s rising voice was a concern to Martha. The taxi driver up
front might hear. Griswolt did not know she was in the LERN underground, and Martha had to keep it that way.
“I bit my tongue!” Martha protested.
Many LERN members had marriages with non-LERN members since
it served as a good cover. Because of their knowledge of how to love,
even covertly, their spouses were generally happier with their marriages
than most couples were. They simply did not know why. In some cases,
they did know why, or at least