Erik Steiner

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Erik lived a few hundred miles away from Raymond Lech. When the copperworks in Lech's region were destroyed, the Kamians built a new refinery. Erik was an engineer and one of the people the Kamians appropriated to design the facility.

Erik's Account

"The Kamians came to my firm one day and said, 'We are taking you into service'. They took the whole firm, crudely packed all of our equipment into large crates. Two soldiers went with me to collect my family. I did not know what our fate would be. We went to my apartment, they gave us no time to pack, we had only a few minutes to grab what we could of our personal belongings. I asked and they told us, 'No, no time, you are to come with us. You will serve us'. I didn't know what they meant.

"They drove us to the outskirts of the city where they had erected a perimeter, a high fence with barbed wire and guard towers. We were taken inside, and I was shocked when they drove us to a nice suburban home. We were put off the truck and told 'There, you live there now. You work there [pointing to another building], be at work every day or you will no longer serve us'. The door to the house had been broken in, and the family had been taken, much as we were... all of their belongings were still inside. Their name was Stem, they had three daughters. The wife had died sometime before the occupation... her ashes were still in the house.

"At the building were I was told to work, the contents of my firm's offices had been brought. Everything had been carelessly thrown into bins and boxes. The Kamians told us were were to design a copper refinery. They showed us the site, an area beside the river being cleared by bulldozers. They said it had to process such and such much ore, and gave us one year to complete the project. They told us if the refinery was not operational at the end of one year, a ship in orbit would fire on the city and destroy it.

"My firm had never designed such a facility, we did mostly bridges and canals and things, but we were suitably motivated. We had in our library the plans for a large refinery and had enough skill to adapt them. The Kamians were very lax, they would ask to see plans and materials lists, and provide the materials as close as they could. If they didn't have something we had to figure out a way to work around it.

"For their part, my wife and children were left to their own devices. There was no school at first, no jobs. The Kamians took our families because they did not think we would co-operate otherwise, but they made no provision for them, simply left us there. I was worried about food, about rationing... it was surprising, but the Kamians actually provided us with plenty of food, they just made no effort to distribute it properly. Every few weeks, a supply truck would arrive, and the driver would order whatever civilians he found to unload it. Mostly food, sometimes some consumer goods, some toiletries and the like. Those that unloaded took whatever they could carry, and word of a "drop" would bring everyone nearby to take us much as they could. But you cannot do much with food besides eat it, so an entire market slowly grew. My son found a lawnmower in our new garage, and would cut the neighbor's grass. My wife started a school in our house. The people who had the time - who didn't have some specific service to conduct - were allowed to do as they pleased, so long as they stayed away from the fences and did not disrupt the order of things. It was not a good life, but it was not bad as it may have been."

Aftermath

Erik himself died under Kamian rule, and the foregoing was compiled by his descendants, and edited into its present form.