Our 12 men have finally arrived, but I have hardly been able
to spend any time with them, because my post ship-landing migraine was
terrible, and it was revived when I learned about their purpose for coming
here.
Perhaps it is only my imagination, but I remember being told that more colonists would arrive to help us. But it turns out that these men are here for two reasons: to manage us, and to breed with us. They have each been assigned to one of us for that purpose, as though we were all married now.
As you can imagine, Zariah, Durada, and Ihsan did not take kindly to this. I think most of the women are barely managing with the new information, and there is so much work every day just to maintain Rabbah that I suspect they’ve hardly had time to get to know their husbands.
Budur has taken to her partner, Kailash, swimmingly. They are both Senfte, and I think they have charmed each other so much that the relationship is just working out. That does not seem like the kind of working partnership that one might want, but at least she is happy, I suppose. She was desperately unhappy, scared even, before Kailash. Now something in her is at ease. Perhaps because she has a body to hide behind, should Zariah choose to blaspheme about union organizing again.
I have been partnered with a man named Yvain. He is a former soldier, Bakalov caste, and looks as though he has been on the front lines more than the robotic soldiers normally sent out. His hands are covered in scars and he has one long slice from his right ear to the thin-skinned area where an artery climbs the neck to send blood to the brain. His hair is buzzed so short I can see his scalp, and it has a mottled gray look about it. The muscles of his arms and legs bulge against his suit, but I suppose mine do now, too, because of the hard labor I’ve been performing. I was never a traditional Gadhavi neutral feminine shape, but now I am even further from my caste’s ideal. My former caste, I suppose.
I do not know why I was paired with this Bakalov soldier. A Senfte, easy of word and smile, I could understand. The Senfte comprehend the efficiency of the Gadhavi and translate it into sweet words and lofty gestures, and they make the perfect, well, servants for the caste. If I were to aim for a lower caste, that is what I would aim for. But I have instead a battle-hardened Bakalov who speaks very little and hovers just outside of my shadow, watching me.
I only fully recovered from the migraine two days ago, and since then I have been working hard in the garden to ignore my new shadow. Natsuki, I found, has been doing much the same thing, an attempt to ignore her partner, Fletcher. She told me over the cucumber plants that she doesn’t like him – he is an Ikin, but he wanted to be an Ikin, he chose that life having worked his way out of the Araboa colony on Bainbridge Island and sued for a place in society. He does not really understand Ikin at all, she said. We whispered over the tomatoes while Yvain and Fletcher stood by the door. I’m sure they heard us, but they didn’t care, and they didn’t leave.
For the most part, it seems like the men have not contributed much physical labor at all. When they are not studiously watching us ladies, they meet in the common room and talk. They talk for hours. They sip water like they were relaxing in an oxygen lounge with energy drinks – some have even brought e-cigarettes that they smoke. As though we needed more steam clogging up the air systems. Will they receive refills for their cigarettes in a shipment? I secretly hope they will not, but becoming a caretaker for a group suffering withdrawal will take too much of my already full time.
Yuda and Zariah maintain the computer systems, organize changing the filters for our air and water and waste – which we must now do twice a day, in part because the last shipment of material that arrived with the men was lower quality and does not create good enough carbon weave for the filters. The air smells metallic again, and the water tastes a little dirty.
The ship they arrived on had a detachable piece, apparently, that flew a load of water to Earth and left a bit of ship behind for us to build onto the station. I caught up on transmissions to and from Earth yesterday – a task that Kailash took over while I was ill – and it appears that the water had some contaminants in it, and therefore Breathe Easy will dock our supplies until we can find a way to fix the problem. Perhaps it is everything we have added to the sea since landing here? I don’t know how we can filter the water ourselves, if that is the case. Perhaps it was just the barrels, though. I will make a point of examining them before we send another shipment.
Vivien released the new octopuses into the ocean while I was unconscious. She says they are doing well, but the original four are more and more lethargic. She cannot bring them inside for fear of breaking the ancient, rusted hydraulics system, which is fragile enough without anyone touching it. However, she said she thinks they may be getting sick from the radiation, since they are exposed to it every week when they bring barrels of water to the surface of Conamara Chaos. She asked me to request iodine in the next shipment, which I did, but I hold no hopes of receiving it. We still have a number of octopus eggs, and if our lives are as disposable as Zariah and Samira think they are, then surely Breathe Easy will not care for the lives of an octopus pod.
The talk of unions seems to have calmed for now, although the colony is still split along the same antagonistic lines. However, I noticed that some new damage had been inflicted on the garden while I was unconscious. I wonder if the two situations are related. I do not know who would do something so stupid as to jeopardize the lives of 24 people by harming their only source of food. When I told this to Ihsan, she laughed at me and said, “Someone who likes the taste of nutritional loaf.”
I doubt that it is Ihsan, however. She may dislike having a forced husband – again – but she would not jeopardize the hard work she has put into that garden. Nor would Durada, who swore never to marry again. It could be any of the ladies who wanted to unionize, but it could also be Haven, angry at the rest of the group for a situation that she put herself in. If she never suggested mining Europa, then she would not have been forced to leave Earth.
And the rest of us would have no way to pay our debts. In a strange way, I am grateful to her, although the situation in Rabbah right now is so tense I might develop ulcers.
Now that everyone is going to sleep for a few hours, I think I will check the barrels. I am still trying to work off a different schedule than the others. I don’t know that I want to have a meal with Zariah and Haven for some time.
Perhaps it is only my imagination, but I remember being told that more colonists would arrive to help us. But it turns out that these men are here for two reasons: to manage us, and to breed with us. They have each been assigned to one of us for that purpose, as though we were all married now.
As you can imagine, Zariah, Durada, and Ihsan did not take kindly to this. I think most of the women are barely managing with the new information, and there is so much work every day just to maintain Rabbah that I suspect they’ve hardly had time to get to know their husbands.
Budur has taken to her partner, Kailash, swimmingly. They are both Senfte, and I think they have charmed each other so much that the relationship is just working out. That does not seem like the kind of working partnership that one might want, but at least she is happy, I suppose. She was desperately unhappy, scared even, before Kailash. Now something in her is at ease. Perhaps because she has a body to hide behind, should Zariah choose to blaspheme about union organizing again.
I have been partnered with a man named Yvain. He is a former soldier, Bakalov caste, and looks as though he has been on the front lines more than the robotic soldiers normally sent out. His hands are covered in scars and he has one long slice from his right ear to the thin-skinned area where an artery climbs the neck to send blood to the brain. His hair is buzzed so short I can see his scalp, and it has a mottled gray look about it. The muscles of his arms and legs bulge against his suit, but I suppose mine do now, too, because of the hard labor I’ve been performing. I was never a traditional Gadhavi neutral feminine shape, but now I am even further from my caste’s ideal. My former caste, I suppose.
I do not know why I was paired with this Bakalov soldier. A Senfte, easy of word and smile, I could understand. The Senfte comprehend the efficiency of the Gadhavi and translate it into sweet words and lofty gestures, and they make the perfect, well, servants for the caste. If I were to aim for a lower caste, that is what I would aim for. But I have instead a battle-hardened Bakalov who speaks very little and hovers just outside of my shadow, watching me.
I only fully recovered from the migraine two days ago, and since then I have been working hard in the garden to ignore my new shadow. Natsuki, I found, has been doing much the same thing, an attempt to ignore her partner, Fletcher. She told me over the cucumber plants that she doesn’t like him – he is an Ikin, but he wanted to be an Ikin, he chose that life having worked his way out of the Araboa colony on Bainbridge Island and sued for a place in society. He does not really understand Ikin at all, she said. We whispered over the tomatoes while Yvain and Fletcher stood by the door. I’m sure they heard us, but they didn’t care, and they didn’t leave.
For the most part, it seems like the men have not contributed much physical labor at all. When they are not studiously watching us ladies, they meet in the common room and talk. They talk for hours. They sip water like they were relaxing in an oxygen lounge with energy drinks – some have even brought e-cigarettes that they smoke. As though we needed more steam clogging up the air systems. Will they receive refills for their cigarettes in a shipment? I secretly hope they will not, but becoming a caretaker for a group suffering withdrawal will take too much of my already full time.
Yuda and Zariah maintain the computer systems, organize changing the filters for our air and water and waste – which we must now do twice a day, in part because the last shipment of material that arrived with the men was lower quality and does not create good enough carbon weave for the filters. The air smells metallic again, and the water tastes a little dirty.
The ship they arrived on had a detachable piece, apparently, that flew a load of water to Earth and left a bit of ship behind for us to build onto the station. I caught up on transmissions to and from Earth yesterday – a task that Kailash took over while I was ill – and it appears that the water had some contaminants in it, and therefore Breathe Easy will dock our supplies until we can find a way to fix the problem. Perhaps it is everything we have added to the sea since landing here? I don’t know how we can filter the water ourselves, if that is the case. Perhaps it was just the barrels, though. I will make a point of examining them before we send another shipment.
Vivien released the new octopuses into the ocean while I was unconscious. She says they are doing well, but the original four are more and more lethargic. She cannot bring them inside for fear of breaking the ancient, rusted hydraulics system, which is fragile enough without anyone touching it. However, she said she thinks they may be getting sick from the radiation, since they are exposed to it every week when they bring barrels of water to the surface of Conamara Chaos. She asked me to request iodine in the next shipment, which I did, but I hold no hopes of receiving it. We still have a number of octopus eggs, and if our lives are as disposable as Zariah and Samira think they are, then surely Breathe Easy will not care for the lives of an octopus pod.
The talk of unions seems to have calmed for now, although the colony is still split along the same antagonistic lines. However, I noticed that some new damage had been inflicted on the garden while I was unconscious. I wonder if the two situations are related. I do not know who would do something so stupid as to jeopardize the lives of 24 people by harming their only source of food. When I told this to Ihsan, she laughed at me and said, “Someone who likes the taste of nutritional loaf.”
I doubt that it is Ihsan, however. She may dislike having a forced husband – again – but she would not jeopardize the hard work she has put into that garden. Nor would Durada, who swore never to marry again. It could be any of the ladies who wanted to unionize, but it could also be Haven, angry at the rest of the group for a situation that she put herself in. If she never suggested mining Europa, then she would not have been forced to leave Earth.
And the rest of us would have no way to pay our debts. In a strange way, I am grateful to her, although the situation in Rabbah right now is so tense I might develop ulcers.
Now that everyone is going to sleep for a few hours, I think I will check the barrels. I am still trying to work off a different schedule than the others. I don’t know that I want to have a meal with Zariah and Haven for some time.
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