Page 56 of I Married Amreth

He nodded. “It is essential for the role. Even if you could find alternatives to Lumiak when it comes to controlling misbehaving inmates or the wild beasts that roam the surrounding forests, you still need it for the power grid. We generate the electrical energy that powers each Quadrant of our Sectors. Building an electric plant or any other source of energy would not only be costly but inefficient.”

I paused running the scanner to stare at him in awe. “So you’re literally a walking battery? This thing about expelling that excess energy this morning wasn’t just an overly dramatic exaggeration. You meant it?!”

He chuckled and nodded. “If your deployable lab ran low on power due to a long period without enough sun to recharge the batteries, I could max them out for you in less than ten minutes.”

I whistled through my teeth as I completed the scan. “I can think of a few people who would love to have you around. Electric bills can be insane on some planets.”

“I bet. They would be as well on Molvi otherwise. Truth be told, I wasn’t certain I wanted to be a Warden initially.”

“Oh? What changed?”

“I wouldn’t say anything changed, but more that things clarified themselves for me as I grew older. I always wavered between becoming a Warden or a Judge. You know how humans incentivize their offspring to be lawyers, doctors, or engineers?”

“Yep, absolutely.”

“For us, it’s a judge, a law enforcer, or taking over whatever the family business is.”

“Not a Warden?” I asked, surprised before indicating for him to release the Onei.

The adorable creature, no bigger than your common house cat, peered up at Amreth with an almost offended expression to have thus been discarded. Considering how eager it had previously been to run off, I expected it not to stick around longer than needed. But it didn’t flee. After lingering around us a moment longer, it sauntered a few meters from where we stood to go munch on more berries nearby.

“There are no more Sectors left to be assigned,” Amreth said as I crouched by the bushes to take some soil samples. So unless your family owns one, or you marry into a family who does, then your chances of becoming a Warden are pretty much nil.”

“Oh, my God! Are there so many prisoners that the entire planet has been used up as Quadrants?!” I asked, stunned.

He smiled and shook his head. “No. Only a third of the planet is currently used for incarcerations. Half is still undisturbed wilderness, and the rest is occupied by the city and residential sectors. There currently is no need for additional space. Should that day come, the competition to secure those new plots will be fierce.”

“I’m surprised your people didn’t just develop them regardless,” I said pensively. “On Earth, any piece of real estate available for development will be exploited to the maximum. Greed is a powerful thing.”

“It is,” he conceded while handing me another container so that I could place more samples of the surrounding flora. “But that kind of thing tends to lead to corruption and miscarriages of justice. If you have empty facilities, you will want to fill them to avoid running a deficit. In turn, it may drive authorities toarrest people under flimsy excuses and for judges to give longer and harsher sentences than necessary. It will also cause existing Sectors to no longer have enough inmates to make their current operation reasonably sustainable.”

“That would be bad for your family?” I asked.

He shook his head. “We’re a noble house. Our wealth dates back centuries, with quite a few very successful and lucrative businesses. The raw material we need for some of our factories is gathered in my Sector. But I pay my inmates at market rates for everything they choose to gather. Therefore, financially, it would make no difference for us whether we bought from our prisoners or from some other company.”

I smiled. “You have no idea how much I appreciate that you guys fairly compensate the prisoners instead of using them as slave labor. For a long time, that’s how humans treated their inmates in privatized prisons.”

He returned my smile. “Obosians aren’t perfect, but where the penal system is concerned, I genuinely believe that there are many things that we do right. I have enough cousins—not to mention my own brother—who are of the Warrior breed who could have become Warden in my stead. As I was never interested in business management, taking over one of our factories didn’t appeal to me.”

“I think you would have been a wonderful Judge. Why did you go with the other option?”

He gave me a mischievous look. “I’m a sucker for punishment?”

I snorted and moved to a different patch of plants and trees to gather more samples, while he held the container for me.

“I can see that. But seriously, why?”

“Because I couldn’t stay locked inside a courtroom just passing judgment on others,” he said, sobering. “I need to be active. I need the outdoors. To become a Warden, weundergo extremely intense training that many actually give up on. Difficulty-wise, it’s comparable to your Navy Seals. But to that you have to include aerial combat both with and without weapons. I got hooked despite the hardships of training.”

“And that certainly paid off,” I said teasingly while giving his body a very meaningful and admirative glance.

He chuckled and bowed his head in a thank you. “However, beyond that, I needed to feel like I was making a difference in people’s lives. As a Judge, you condemn them and move on. As a Warden, you can try to help them back on the path of redemption. Each person you helped improve themselves, find their way, and go on to live a righteous and productive life is the greatest victory one could dream of.”

My chest warmed for him for the passionate way he spoke of this. It gave me yet another glimpse at the truly good male buried inside his stern and intimidating Obosian exterior.

“Does it happen often that you can redeem your inmates?” I asked in a soft voice.

He pursed his lips, and his shoulders slouched imperceptibly. “Sadly, nowhere near as often as I would like. We have a respectably high success rate with inmates from Q1. But that diminishes almost exponentially the darker the Quadrants. Still, there have been redemptions in Q4 in the past. I endeavor to continue to increase that ratio over time. But what about you? What made you want to become an Interstellar Doctor?”

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