Twenty-Seven

We have some major problems and I don’t know how to speak to Breathe Easy about it, so I will write it here and hope for the best.

Ghadir has been unable to preserve any of our food stocks. Other than nutritional loaves, we have no food buffer for shortages. We have no way, through brining, drying, or fermenting, to save food for lean times ahead.

And we will likely have lean times soon. Our lettuce, which was exploding all over the garden, has disappeared. Our few tomatoes are gone. The new plants continue to sprout, but I fear for them. The fish eggs are gone, as well, and that means the octopuses will continue to eat the bivalves off the sides of Rabbah. We added more – tube worms, which will become huge veiny red creatures, along with mussels, scallops, clams – but it may not be enough to buffer us against the cold of Europa’s oceans, because once we release the new four octopuses, they too will eat the animals off the sides of our station. I wish we had never introduced them to this source of protein, but they are meat-eating animals so they may have died from lack of nutrients. It is hard to know, now.

And the four octopuses outside appear lethargic. Vivien thinks they have caught some kind of disease, which means there might be viruses that we could be susceptible to. There is no way for a pathogen like a virus to spread from cephalopod to mammal and infect both, but I am still concerned about the potential for us to get sick again.

I insisted all the women use the vaccines that Breathe Easy sent us, and I made sure they all complied. I am less well-liked than before, although I still believe most of the women only spoke to me to sway me, the one person communicating with Breathe Easy, to their side.

I cannot wait for the men to get here to calm this situation down.

Here is the strangest experience, which I have already reported to Breathe Easy and which they have not yet responded to. Zariah has suggested we form a union. I did not know what a union was until she explained it, though. This was a few days ago, and I had made a rare appearance in the common room for dinner, because I had been working all day and missed a meal and was generally exhausted.

Everyone was leaning intently over their bowls of clam and tomato chowder, even Budur and Haven, as Zariah was speaking to the group. Everyone turned as I walked in, and Ghadir jumped up to grab soup for me. I took it from her as I sat down, and Zariah said to me, “Ah, good, we haven’t seen you in awhile, Aelis. We were just discussing the future of Rabbah.”

I nodded, although my stomach knotted up. I gulped a bite of acidic chowder anyway, hoping that the knot was mostly hunger.

But Zariah was talking about something treasonous. “I was telling everyone that we should Unionize.”

I looked around. Before, when I was a child, I had heard this term, and it was always accompanied with a sneer of disgust. I didn’t really know what it meant, until Zariah explained it. I have no idea how she discovered the concept.

“It’s all blasphemy,” Haven said, and scowled into her bowl. Budur’s eyes shifted from Haven, to me, to Samira, her former knitting companion, who stood statuesque and defiant against Haven’s official disapproval.

Samira stood as well. “It might be the best way we can protect ourselves,” she said. Chloe, Yuda, and Vivien all nodded.

“I don’t know what this discussion is about,” I said, “but I have been doing everything I can to express our needs to Breathe Easy. They’ve sent us more supplies on a regular basis, we’re doing well with mining, and the next round of colonists will be here very soon. They clearly want us to succeed. I don’t know what we can do beyond that.”

Budur nodded enthusiastically. Ghadir looked terrified, caught as she was between Yuda, Zariah’s near-constant companion, and me.

“Aelis, do you know what a Union is?” Zariah asked, face tilted up so she had to look down the length of her thin nose at me. I shook my head “no.”

“Despite what you may have been told by your corporate masters,” she continued, “a Union is not a bad thing. It is a group of people with skills that are necessary to keep a business running, who band together to ensure their needs are met.”

“Our needs are met,” Budur said softly. Haven had raised her eyes from her bowl, and her pupils were now burning lasers at Zariah’s head. I remembered the keen headache that hyper-focused stare had given me and gulped a huge bite of soup to distract myself.

Zariah, however, seemed not to suffer from any kind of burning pain, and instead reflected the laser glare back at Haven. She said, “This company does not care if we succeed, they just want their profits. They have used vital shipments as leverage before, and they only continued when we proved we were able to mine the water from Europa. How long will that last? Until they find an easier way of getting water. Until they have so much water that they don’t need us anymore.”

“They have given us food, shelter, medicine, and structure,” Haven replied. “That is all they must give us. They did not have to give us even that.”

“But they will let it all fail, replace us, if they want!” Zariah retorted.

“And what of that!” Haven slammed her hands – a violent habit for emphasis and commanding attention, I’ve noticed – into the table with a crack, shivering bowls and splashing red soup. “All of you are criminals, the worst scum that could be on Earth, who defied the social contract written up between the corporations that provide for us, and the caste system that keeps us functioning. Humans would have destroyed ourselves a century ago if not for the Declaration of Incorporated Personhood, and yet people like you, Zariah, and like you, Aelis, and Ghadir, and Chloe, and Durada, keep pushing those boundaries too far. You do not accept the undeserved generosity you receive every day from these businesses, and instead seek something else, something you think might be better. But there is nothing better, there never was a solution that worked this well! And now you put all of our lives and livelihoods in danger with despicable words! If Breathe Easy allows us to die, so what? Our lives are worth less than nothing anyway!”

Zariah almost launched herself across the table, but Samira and Yuda held her back. Budur leapt to stand by Haven, and the rest of us cleared back away from the table as fast as we could.

It only took a few seconds for the physical restraint to calm Zariah down. Haven’s fingers were white with gripping the edge of the table. But they stayed locked in each other’s fiery gaze for long afterward.

Samira finally put an arm between the two, as though she was a grounded connection and could dispel the electric shock building between them, threatening to kill us all. Haven leaned back. Zariah looked into her soup.

Samira, stately but shaking slightly, looked at Haven and said, “Please tell us, Haven, why you joined this group? You talk as though you were the only innocent civilian among us.”

Without releasing her grip, she said, “The CEOs of Breathe Easy asked me to manage the project.”

“And you said yes?” Samira asked. “It was as simple as that?”

“I have worked for Breathe Easy for my entire career,” Haven replied. “I managed a water filtration plant on the Eastern Coast for a decade. I am good at my job. They recognized that. They asked me to manage the Rabbah Expedition, a bigger project.”

Samira nodded. “So there was no reason they would have wanted you off Earth?” Haven was a statue. I thought she had begun to meld into the printed carbon table. When she received no response, Samira continued, “One night when I was too dizzy to sleep, I read the personnel files on everyone on this mission. They are freely available in the archives, but not easy to access. Still, I think we should all read them now, to get to know one another better.” She looked around. “We, including Haven, are all society’s rejects for one reason or another. We are listed as ‘repaying our debts,’ but that does not even begin to cover our crimes. Including Haven.” Haven was beginning to return to human, I thought – her shoulders were shaking, which shook the table. I picked up my soup, not wanting to create more work for Ghadir if my food spilled.

Samira kept relentlessly on, speaking directly to Haven again, “You broke the caste regulations. That is why you are with a group of criminals. You spoke directly with the CEOs of Breathe Easy, anonymously through email, to suggest this mission rather than continue the failing attempt to maintain their water filtration plants. The oceans are growing filthier, as more and more land and abandoned cities are swallowed up, and the cost of maintaining the factories is getting too high. But with water on Europa – knowledge that a Bakalov should never have gleaned – it will cost the company less in the long run to suck all of the precious liquid off of this moon and bring it to Earth, than to maintain a large workforce that constantly fixes and cleans the factories. You should never have been smart enough to figure that out. And when the CEOs realized they could send you away from the entire planet, instead of taking you to court, they decided to side-step infamy and “promote” you instead. They, too, have broken that law, by not reporting your criminal activities to the government through lawsuit.”

Samira sat down. Haven’s arms began shaking the table.

Zariah, former Bakalov as well, furrowed her brows together and stared at Haven. “You are a criminal like us, then.”

Haven picked up her bowl and threw it against a nearby wall. I took that opportunity to exit as quickly as I could. That was a good move on my part, I think, because many women had bruises and cuts the next day. I had to sew a thick laceration in Budur’s arm, which tore through her suit and left fibers embedded in her skin. I gave Yuda painkillers for a nearly-broken jaw, but there was little else I could do for her. She will just have to keep her mouth shut for a few days.

Chloe and Samira are working hard to sew up the damaged survival suits, but it is not easy going since most of our supplies have been used to weave new filters for the air system – which still smells metallic to me. Budur has refused to help, and even moved into a room on the opposite end of Rabbah from Chloe and Zariah.

What a waste. I hope the men can work something out for everyone when they arrive. Men are better at politics than women.