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.
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.
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