Twenty-Five

Budur has been shaking too much lately – she seems to have taken over the timid personality that Samira shed – so I asked her if I might take her place to guide in the ship. She agreed.

In a very literal sense, guiding a supply ship into port is a headache. I was unable to get out of bed for a day because of the pain. Ihsan stayed with me while the rest of the women – in stony silence, I’m sure – unloaded the ship. Vivien was able to finally get the octopuses to leave the barrels alone, however, so we were able to send our first water shipment off to Earth. Ihsan said the ship navigated itself away, once it felt the final barrel click into place. That hardly seems fair, but I’m sure Breathe Easy has a good reason for a human to land the contraption.

I was finally able to get up and take a look at the supplies. My fellow Gadhavi, Chloe, was taking inventory in the agriculture store room when I walked in. She looked me up and down, something behind her eyes clicking into place enough to speak to me.

“We have more strawberry seedlings than I thought we would,” she finally said. I smiled and nodded, gingerly, in hopes to avoid the strain-caused migraine I’d overcome at last.

“We have some cucumbers as well, more fish and bivalves, and it looks like tube worms,” she continued. “Nothing medicinal, not even an herb. They might have caught on to us about that, so our supplies will be low.” She raised her eyes, and I felt her pupils grinding into my mind. I blinked hard and looked away, feeling the queasiness of migraine returning to my stomach and freezing the tips of my fingers. “If you get sick again, we won’t be able to help you, I think.”

I shrugged as slowly as I could manage. “I am sure I will grow accustomed to piloting the supply shipments, if that is what you mean.”

Chloe nodded, but I could still feel her pupils scraping against the back of my head. She said, voice low and sharp, “You will help us stay on good terms with Breathe Easy, because we cannot afford for these shipments to be disrupted.”

“I know, this is only our first one,” I replied, turning my eyes away from her but trying to raise myself up to my full height. I would not allow her gaze to crush me. “I want this colony to succeed.” It is a diplomatic thing to say on Rabbah these days.

Chloe nodded again, and turned away from me.

The colony seems to be split, unevenly, and I have been trying to hold everything together like a good Gadhavi. It is exhausting. Yuda, Zariah, Vivien, Samira, and Chloe spend as much time together as they can, looking askance at Haven and Budur whenever either woman passes by. Budur and Haven return the glares, and do not speak to any of the women in that group. Meanwhile, Durada, Natsuki, Ihsan, Ghadir, and myself do our best to bridge the communication gap. Durada says that she sympathizes with Samira’s words, but it is none of her concern. Ihsan says that it is why she is glad to be gone from Earth. Natsuki is unsurprised – she is from a long line of Ikin migrant workers, and she said that she sees and understands that treatment. The Ikin, she says, have much the same attitude as the Araboa – they keep themselves separate from the other castes, only interacting with the rest of the world when necessary. However, she says, she has always seen the benefit to her for working for Hou “enslavers,” and she does not plan to stop now. Ghadir has not said much at all – she stays in the kitchen most days, working diligently on our food preservation problem. I suspect because she is taking my lead on the problem.

I took some seeds and began walking toward the garden, when Haven cornered me. “I am glad that you are awake again,” she said, but there was no kindness in her voice, only an edge of desperation. “Budur and I need your help. I am afraid that the colony is falling apart.”

“So is Chloe,” I replied in a voice just too harsh, and I had to lean against the wall to stop the vertigo. I want all of the unintentional factions to understand each other. I could feel the tendrils of migraine creeping up my throat and into my skull, so I tried to smile and took a deep breath. The air smelled a little metallic.

Haven heaved a sigh. “When you next send a missive to Breathe Easy, please ask about the next group of colonists, alright?”

“What do you want me to ask, specifically?”

“Nothing specific, except timing. And please let them know about the criminal talks that have happened here.”

“What if they leave us to die because of our conversations?” I asked. I do not think that would happen, truly, but I needed her reasons.

“They won’t,” Haven insisted. “I think, if they supplement our numbers sooner rather than later, we can put an end to this … outburst. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

So I have sent word to Breathe Easy, but I have yet to receive a reply. The situation here is growing too tense, and I am concerned we may not be able to work together for much longer. Our food reserves are, as ever, just barely enough, and our air filters need replacing. But our octopuses are working with us – we have four more babies that have hatched, which I will name soon – and a few tomatoes finally. We are successful in our own way, I know that we can be of use to Breathe Easy with just a little more assistance, although it might be more useful in the form of supplies rather than people. But whatever the company thinks is best.

Please.

Twenty-Four

I’m not sure how to start this transmission. Last week was hell. I don’t know what to do.

I spoke with Haven about Breathe Easy’s decision to send us only half the supplies we need. She was unhappy, but explained about payload and the amount of power it takes to shift something that heavy into space and how the cost has to be offset by a potential benefit, and they probably just don’t think we’ve been here long enough to have actually gathered enough water or set up the station well enough for regular shipments. I nodded in agreement as she spoke, because I don’t doubt Breathe Easy’s intentions.

We then discussed what we thought would need to be in place to receive the first supply shipment, and any last minute pieces we would need to put into place in order to get the water barrels underway. I asked Haven to talk to everyone about the shipment, and more specifically if she would ask Zariah and Yuda to get the glasses ready and I would pilot the freight in. Haven agreed, but it took her another full day before she called everyone to a meeting about the incoming supplies. Meanwhile, she went ahead and divided up mining tasks to everyone, which seemed to overexcite the group.

I just kept my mouth shut. I didn’t get assigned to anything involving mining, anyway. Instead, Durada and I worked on the garden, while Natsuki and Vivien spent long hours – more than we all would have wanted – on convincing the octopus pod that the barrels were not toys, and once moved to the top, they needed to stay there. Finally, Vivien lured them back in with promises of clams. We are all keeping our fingers crossed that they will not eat greater quantities of the bivalves off our cold deep-space base.

Zariah and Yuda hooked one delicate pair of glasses up to the computer so that we could pilot in the supply ship, but of all people, Haven assigned Budur to the piloting task. Budur did fine on Moon Base when we learned how to use the glasses through the pilot program, but she wasn’t the strongest pilot, either. I think Haven picked her because the two are inseparable lately. Haven has, oddly enough, taken well to knitting and I think they bonded over that, but it’s much deeper now. They both have a deep-rooted sense of duty without questioning, which is not unusual for either the Senfte or the Bakalov, but does not fit with the culture that the twelve of us are collectively creating on Rabbah. Not that we don’t listen to our employers, but that we have to figure out our own ways of making their rules work. Neither Haven nor Budur has been active in that quest, and instead have both extolled the virtues of hard work without specifics.

So, soft, undemanding Budur is supposed to guide the ship in to port in the ice floes of Europa’s largest melted area.

But then, once we had everything set up, Haven called a meeting. After everything was in place. She had us all stay in the common area after dinner, and explained what had happened with our supplies, that we would not receive any more medical supplies for now and that the company could only afford to send us half of what we needed. Yuda stormed out, and Zariah immediately followed after releasing a sound somewhere between a terrified dog’s yap, and a human’s surprised laugh at an unexpected joke. The rest of us sat there, and I could feel bile gathering around the seaweed and nutritional loaf that sat, like a brick, in my stomach.

“Why would they do that to us?” Chloe finally croaked. Her eyes could have started a fire, they were so laser-pointed at a spot on the ground.

Haven opened her mouth to explain, but Samira held up a thin hand to stop her. “This is what the lower castes are for, even the Gadhavi,” she said, in a very important tone. “When I worked in the film industry, that is how we treated the lower castes, as errand-runners, luggage-haulers, grunts.”

I admit that we all stared at her for a long time. Finally, I said, “Film?”

Samira nodded, and kept her eyes down – a traditional gesture of the Ikin, one that suited her exhausted eyes. “Before I was exiled, I was an Arany film star. I went to Hou parties and entertained some of the most famous CEOs on Earth today. I had three Gadhavi personal assistants and I sent them on pointless errands for my amusement. When I was in school, I spent a year wearing only silk dresses that barely fit the uniform code.”

I inclined my head toward her without thinking, horrified though I was at her words. Although I am not a fit Gadhavi caste member, I do not recall being treated with disdain by my Arany employer. The Hou have always taken care of all of us, as well, and though we do not often see their faces, we know that they want us around because they give us a place to live, food to eat, a stipend and clothes. The Hou CEOs are still generous with us, now, on this colony. While I did not fit into traditional Earth culture, I did not think I was being disrespected.

Samira put her hand on my chin and raised my head. Chloe’s laser-burning eyes were now trained on Samira, but the woman, whose constitution would not have withstood such a glare a mere few hours ago, held her head high under the scrutiny and terror reflected in the eyes around her. I could feel the thin callouses barely beginning to cover her fingers.

“What I am about to say will be shocking to many of you,” she said, looking directly at me. “But I have met the Hou, representatives of these families that run all of global commerce, and I will tell you that they do not care about you. They care about the money that you make for them.”

“That is not the truth!” Haven shouted. Her hands slammed into the table and some of our dishes fell to the floor. We all instinctively twitched away from the violent outburst – except for Samira, whose level gaze shamed the Bakalov representative into sitting back down. Budur put a hand on Haven’s shoulder.

“I spoke out a few years ago,” Samira said, “because I did not like what I was beginning to hear about asteroid mining operations. How humans were sacrificed to bring gold to Hou families, who stockpile the stuff to protect themselves against the economic instability that they intentionally create. How safety was sacrificed for a quick ship-out, and quick payload return. I have been cruel to my share of people in the lower castes, but I never wanted them to die. I never saw the point in wasting a life for money. But the Hou do. The Hou keep records of the money each of us make for them, to determine what our lives are worth.”

“We must repay them, if they give us clothes and food and shelter then that is what we work for,” Haven spat. I nodded in agreement. This has always been the proper way.

Samira shrugged. “Lives are valuable, it is true. Wasting life is, well, like throwing away groceries immediately after you buy them.”

Chloe’s head was beginning to shake with the force of her stare, but she choked out, “Is that why you are here?”

The delicate Arany woman nodded. “I made a lot of money for my Hou employers. They loved my beauty and on-screen strength. When I tried to use my power to keep them from misusing some Ikin migrant workers they fired me, and sued me for libel. I spent a year homeless, except for the hours I spent in court, and finally Breathe Easy sent this offer as a plea deal to my lawyer, who accepted without consulting me.

“I like all of you, and I am beginning to surprise myself, both because of my weaknesses where I thought I had none, and because of my new-found strengths. I have never used my hands for anything before, and I find that I love the work. But life here will be hard, because we are all viewed as expendable. Unless we can make incredible amounts of money for the company. Then they will help us.”

“You say that as though we did not know it already,” Haven growled. She slammed her hands into the table again – intentionally, while glaring at Samira – and stormed out. Budur, fingers gripped tightly together, followed Haven without a backward glance at her knitting partner.

I wasn’t sure what else to do, so I also left. Ghadir followed me – Ghadir follows me a lot these days – and I believe the four Ikin ladies also left.

Since then, there have been whispers among some of the women here. Chloe and Samira and Yuda and Zariah and Vivien, all women I like too much to see hurt. I have not directly informed Breathe Easy yet because I don’t know how to tell them all of this. No one has stopped working – we have all prepared for the arrival of the supply ship, we have all kept gardening and working with the octopus pod and trying to hatch more fish, bivalves, and octopuses from eggs. We still gather in the same place for meals, although we haven’t look at each other much in the last few days.

Twenty-Three

I’ve been focusing hard on not being depressed. Things are difficult here, although a lot of good has happened. Our water continues to be slightly briny, so Ghadir has made huge vats of shellfish and seaweed soup for us, which keeps us hydrated throughout the day. She also has been working with Ihsan on an herbal supplement that seems like a crazy witches’ brew of substances: water, thick chunks of aloe (she says it will soothe our stomachs), and a hint of coffee senna, to keep us “regular.” We’ve been drinking the brew at mealtimes, chewing toasted pieces of nutritional loaf – not so bad once it’s been heated – and soup or lettuce salad.

I still miss fruit, and I look forward to planting some strawberries.

Some of the blossoms have fallen off the tomato plants, which Durada says a good sign – they will produce fruit soon. Everyone helps keep the lettuce at bay by snacking on it regularly, and the fiber seems to help.

Samira seems content working on her knitting projects with Budur, and dreaming up weaving patterns. I am surprised that she allows her imagination to roam so far, because the Ikin are known for their sturdiness, their present-moment hard work, and not for their long-ranging ideals and vision. But she fixed the water and waste systems as much as she could, and since recovering from her illness, she has spent many hours at a computer terminal, creating different weaving patterns for these systems. She has also designed a few additions to our survival suits, which I hope she is able to implement with at least a little of the material in the next shipment, if we can spare it. When she’s not at the computer terminal or eating, slowly and meticulously in the cafeteria, she and Zariah and Chloe stand in the halls and talk. I am continually amazed that those three have so easily stepped out of their castes.

The e. Coli symptoms seem to be gone in everyone, and the waste filtration system is in fine working order, but no one has figured out yet why the water, uncooked or without additives, makes us sick. Our shellfish and kelp like it just fine, and even the algae in the air system seems to like it. It’s just us, and we don’t have enough scientific equipment to figure it out.

Oh, speaking of the water! We released our four octopus friends into the pitch-dark Europan sea, and they seem to like it there, too. I knew octopuses preferred the dark, but they love this water! They swim far away, possibly looking for places to nest, until we send out a sound wave and then they come back, congregating in the beam of our one search light near our one camera outside. Our supplies are about a week out, but I think they are already investigating the barrels and playing with them. We throw food out to them every few hours, and we will also release the wriggling fish schools out to them soon, so they won’t have to return to us nearly as often.

Vivien and I are already working on the next round of octopus hatchlings.

Yuda asked me an interesting question today. Haven has been busy “organizing” our information catalogues and books, and I have been responsible for most of the communication with Breathe Easy. Everyone knows, of course, that our next shipment is on the way, but Yuda has been especially distracted since I broke the news.

I was writing up some growth cycle information about our bivalves outside, when she came up to me and sat down. She doesn’t interact with me often, but I’ve tried hard to make myself available to the lower castes. I stopped writing and turned to her, smiling. We stared at each other for a few seconds, she awkwardly studying my eyes, then she finally spoke.

“I wanted to ask, Aelis, if you knew when the next group of colonists would be coming.”

I told her that official strategy suggested that they would come in another 4 months – at the six month point for the entire mining operation. She looked disappointed.

“Are you tired of the rest of us?” I playfully suggested. She shook her head.

“No, I um. I heard that there would be arrangements made for each of us … for partners?” She seemed very embarrassed to be asking this. I’d worry about sending information about this conversation out to the world, but I think Breathe Easy would be pleased to know that at least one of the colonists here is looking forward to some male company, so if any of you out there reading this are on your way …

I know the plan with the second round of colonists is to send mostly, if not entirely, men. Those of us that want to stay past our repayment will have the option of marrying and beginning to populate Rabbah. The base isn’t large enough, but perhaps the next ship will be bigger, or we can begin eventually get enough extra printer material, or a larger printer, and we could begin to expand the base in ways of our own devising.

I can’t imagine children down here, but I will admit that I also miss a man’s touch. Sometimes, when I’m completely alone and my mind is wandering, I miss Alan. Not enough to go back to my old life. He and I were not compatible enough to live on the same planet.

I hope that he is well.

I explained as much about the project as I knew to Yuda, that Breathe Easy would try to send us compatible men but I didn’t know how many of them would be in the next wave. If we need more workers, I assume they will send more women, with only a few men. That might create some jealousy problems, I understand, but women are traditionally harder workers than men. Men in each caste dream large dreams, and women work to make them real, as we are working to make Breathe Easy’s dream of fresh, uncontested water a reality.

Yuda seemed satisfied with my explanation and walked away. I have put a note in my latest transmission to Breathe Easy that perhaps they might consider sending more colonists sooner. Four more months is a long wait. We could use the storage capacity for more goods, as well. But, I also suspect there are more of us that miss the presence of a man than are willing to admit. Durada might be the only one resistant to the idea, because she still mourns for her dead husband.

The worst news so far: Unfortunatley, Breathe Easy has denied my request for more antibiotics. They say that what they’re sending us is already on its way, and only half of what we needed as far as printer supplies and seeds could fit in the load. It’s sad, but I suppose the transport was a specific size so that it could accelerate more quickly in the StarTram.

I have not broken the news about the latest shipment to the other women yet, but I must figure out a way to do that soon. We have to decide who will pilot the ship in, and who will communicate to the octopus pod to load the barrels. Those will need to float to the top a few days before the ship arrives. Maybe I will talk to Haven, and she can talk to everyone for me. She is here to be our leader, and although she was originally a lower caste, I can tell that she wants to lead the group. If she does not want to do it, I will volunteer to pilot in the ship if she will speak to everyone.

I don’t think anyone will be happy to hear about the smaller-than-hoped for amount of supplies.

While I’m thinking about it, we have not taken the glasses out of their containers and hooked them into the computer system yet. I will also ask Haven to speak to Zariah and Yuda, and perhaps get Budur and Chloe to help them.

Twenty-Two

First, thank you to Breathe Easy. I did send my response last week, as I promised, and they agreed to send the first load of supplies. We’ve been feeding the octopuses as much as possible so that they will grow quickly. It’s been a month and a half and they’re basically physically grown, though still juveniles. They’re a little too playful – they have taken to tossing the barrel toys to each other, instead of just bringing them to the surface, and they also like to grab human arms with their tentacles and pull. I think we’ll be a little safer once we get them completely outside. We’ve moved on to training them to respond to flashing lights or patterns of beeps – the sound waves are less annoying to them, I think – so we can tell them what to do from inside the ship. Once they understand that, we’ll release them into the cold oceans of Europa.

Vivien had some concern that they might be too exposed to radiation from outer space, because of where Rabbah is positioned. With the Conamara Chaos melt area above us, the ice crust does not fully protect against radiation. I think they’ll be fine, though. They won’t be near the surface more than a couple of times a month, which is not deadly exposure in most creatures on Earth.

We’ve had a bit of bad news in the last week, as well. Although we all worked hard to make sure all of our filtration systems were running efficiently, we focused more on the air filtration system than waste or water, and we did not have as many filters as we needed when we got to those systems. Our water has been a little briny, and it does not sit well when we drink it. We’ve all had dehydration headaches, too, because we can’t drink as much as we truly need. We will have to focus on making more filters for the water when we get our first supply shipment.

We also had a breakdown in the waste system, because about half of us were down with a mild case of e. Coli from waste contamination. The antibacterial drugs worked wonders, but it took about two days to figure out what had happened. We all took a round of drugs just in case.

Samira, of course, took the breakdowns harder than the rest of us. For an Ikin, she is incredibly delicate. She did not swoon, however, but instead spent most of her time elbows-deep in both the filtration systems, weaving the meshes back together. Her mental constitution is amazing, but her physical constitution is nowhere near what it should be, out here. She was sick for three days, vomiting from e. Coli, then had a bad reaction to the antibacterial drugs that made her break out in hives, and since then she hasn’t been able to stomach the water. Ghadir started making thin seafood soups, because Samira and Chloe were hit the hardest by the illness and need to stay hydrated. The protein should help them get stronger as well, and the seafood taste covers up the brine.

I miss fruit. Our tomatoes are blooming, and Durada and I pollinated the blossoms. I cannot wait to have tomatoes. The vitamin C in the nutritional loaf is, I’m sure, the only thing keeping me from going completely insane or suffering from scurvy.

Natsuki, Ihsan, and I gathered the small bag of fish eggs that we had and put them into the makeshift stream in the garden. We have tiny fish babies now, which will be released into the world over the next few days. Then we’ll release the octopuses. I hope they stay away from our bivalves, but I also hope that they don’t eat all of the schools of fish, so that we can enjoy a fillet once in a while.

Durada and Chloe, although they were both out with e. Coli for several days, have been working to make “soil” so that we can begin planting more solid foods. This mostly, as you can imagine, involves our waste, once it has dried out, mixed with dying algae cultures and the shells from our bivalves. Durada called it “composting,” and said it was something she did all the time when she ran her farm.

I suppose I should contact Breathe Easy directly, while they’re assembling the supplies, and ask for more medicine. If we have another breakdown in the waste system, we could all get sick again. But, if we have more filters, that is less likely to happen. Maybe I will just wait and see. We are, I hear, getting some seeds for strawberries and varieties of cabbages, along with more silk and carbon fiber.

Because I’ve been in direct contact with Breathe Easy recently, Haven has taken to micromanaging my writing. I just let her review this, but I’m not done. She needs another job, but because she exists as Breathe Easy’s eyes and ears, and has few other Maker-related skills than that, she doesn’t seem to quite know what to do with herself. She’s reorganized the storage areas several times already, and has attempted to organize our information library, much to Yuda’s chagrin – those two, lifelong Araboa and dedicated Bakalov, are like oil and water. Well, not even that – more like oxygen and a spark. They may not set each other off, but when they do, it’s better to stand several feet away. Because Zariah was once also Bakalov, she manages to come between them before a hole is blown into the side of the colony.

Maybe we should make a reading list for her. Chloe will probably also have some great books for Haven to read. And we should also restart the knitting group, now that our daily routines are evening out. If Haven is involved with all of us, or feels that she is able to keep track of us all at once, she may begin to calm down. I’m afraid that she will go crazy if she cannot find a way to feel useful.

I’m not sure how I’d propose a reading list to her. I might have been born a few castes higher than her, but I don’t want to order Haven around. She has an important role to play in this colony. I think.

*

Chloe, Ghadir, and I made a reading list for Haven of books on cooking, sewing, gardening, canning, circuitry, etc. I’m going to send this missive secretly before she reads it, but the way I finally decided to get her to focus was by putting the chapter information in the wrong order, and telling her that there was something wrong with our logs. I will tell her that I looked up the chapter on aloe vera’s uses as a calming agent for ulcers, and I had noticed that the book was horribly awry. She’ll have to actually read through everything in order to organize it. She’ll either enjoy the organizing – which will give us enough time to actually use items and have them terribly disorganized, or get the station dirty with our skin flakes and lost hair, and then she’ll have some kind of job again; or, she’ll become interested in some subject or other and want to start working on that part of the station. It’s not very nice, but it is clever.

I just want her to feel like she belongs here with us.