Vyyda Book 1: The Haver Problem Read Free Page A

morality plays and cautionary tales for a modern age).  However, as long as the tales of Jefferson and others like him didn't diminish output, they were loath to put effort into quashing it.
                  Control over information regarding current events outside the planet, on the other hand, was something else entirely.
                  Developments occurring throughout U-Space considered potentially disruptive or demoralizing to the workers of Hyland 6A were excised from the daily digests of news made available to the population.  In truth, very little real information from outside Hyland actually snuck through to the citizens.
                  Yet during much of Dorsey's youth, an alternate means of contact with the far reaches of U-Space existed:  crew members of cargo transports ( molkas ) delivering supplies and goods or, conversely, removing processed grain for delivery, were a regular presence.
                  Stories and tidbits brought by these men of constant travel served as the basis of addiction for some, Dorsey Jefferson included.  Even the discussion of essentially inconsequential events in places completely unfamiliar to the workers of Hyland 6A was thrilling.
                  Most tales tended toward the harmless: the description of fashion fads (which the plain-living people of Hyland could only barely grasp), popular new games of chance invented on other worlds that were beginning to make the rounds and rumors of intriguing items (small animals, plants and the like) successfully smuggled off Earth and sold to the highest bidders in U-Space.
                  Many administrators aware of these episodes looked the other way, avoiding discipline they had no desire to dole out.  However, a few of the "overseers" theorized that the minutiae of U-Space would eventually give way to a more significant storyline, potent enough to provide genuine distraction for the workers.
                  And that is exactly what happened.
    Sessions in which the cargo molka crew members held forth with stories from around U-Space always took place in one or another of Hyland’s taverns.  Smaller, dark places were avoided.  The ‘nook and cranny’ joints were inadequate to hold the numbers interested in listening.  Since the visiting crewmen never, ever bought their own drinks, having a large crowd to share the burden of keeping them supplied made all the difference.
    Dorsey knew of such evenings for most of his childhood, but he was only allowed to attend once he turned fifteen and joined the Hyland workforce.  The first few weeks of his eligibility just happened to coincide with the start of an epic storyline that lasted months.
     
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                  "Earth!  The man said there's four of them...and they're going to Earth ,"  one of the process line laborers, speaking to a coworker across stacks of unrefined syntho-grains, was overheard to say by Dorsey.  Not that the other dozen people in the room scaling the rough crusts couldn't hear, but few of them seemed interested. 
    Millar Jeff erson watched intently as his son passed through the room, a pair of small, durable carts with him to collect the discarded crusts and wheel them away – the lowliest job on the line.  Dorsey lingered, focusing on the story being retold.  Millar glared in his son's direction until the younger Jefferson noticed and moved along.
                  It didn't prevent Dorsey from getting the entire story.  He'd been hearing fragments from workers in all the processing rooms the whole morning.  Very few Hylandites had been at Binches (one of the settlement's larger taverns) the previous night to hear the full telling of the tale by visiting cargo crewmen, known as joks.  But word was spreading quickly among the