Thirty-Eight

They have barely healed, it has only been a week, and already the anti-unionizers have attempted another takeover. They played it smart this time, as well – their numbers would not have allowed them to fight hand-to-hand, or weapon-to-weapon, so they came up with a plan.

It was breakfast, Ghadir served us another seafood stew with strips of dried kelp – she had managed to somewhat dry them, so they were sticky like fruit candy – and we were all eating together, a rarity as many of us had reset our sleep schedules to avoid each other. But it was a potential transmission day, a day we might hear from Breathe Easy, which we haven’t for two months now. Some held out hope that we could see a mysterious supply ship, since we sent the barrels back. I am surprised that neither Vivien nor I were detained or beaten by Chloe and Zariah and Suharto for our deviance, but perhaps it was because there was potential for explosive violence with the anti-union group.

I ate slowly, watching hands as they raised utensils to check stitches and check for shaking. I cannot look most of these people in the eye anymore, so I watch their hands. Hands can show intention as much as shifting eyes and the chewed corners of mouths.

But I saw no hand twitches, no fingers writhing for knives. Instead, Kailash stood and wiped his mouth, then Fletcher took one last swig of his soup, and Rusul chewed a sliver of kelp and nonchalantly stood. Budur quickly left the room, and Haven started clearing bowls.

And they all left. Zariah and Chloe looked at each other, slurped the rest of their soup and stood, but it was too late. They moved too slowly, and the door to the common room slammed shut. Scraping sounds from behind suggested they moved crates full of scrap in front of the door.

Kailash’s voice boomed through: “We are taking Rabbah. This nonsense about unionizing has to stop. We must all work for our common cause – survival. Agree and we will let you out.”

Zariah, Suharto, and Chloe all looked at each other. Yvain moved to stand behind me, ready to strike anyone who came too close.

“There’s more of us,” Chloe said.

“I agree,” Zariah said, then more quietly, “But we could agree to their terms and fight back later.”

“We did not believe in the Declaration of Incorporated Personhood,” Suharto said, “we don’t have to agree to this rhetoric, either.”

Guo clutched his broken wrist, bandaged and just regaining mobility. Yuda, who had not been in the initial fight, held him close.

“You are all still very hurt,” I said. “If you fight back, your stitches will burst. We don’t have any more antibiotics.”

Chloe scowled at me. “What happened to you, Aelis?”

I shrugged. “I only ever wanted to be away from Earth. These politics smack too much of Earth, to me.”

She chuckled.

Zariah looked at Suharto. “Shall I, or shall you?” Suharto gestured for Zariah to speak. She walked to the door and boomed, “Alright, you win. Let us out.”

Scraping, and eventually, the door opened. Rusul, Fletcher, Kailash, and Haven were all armed with knives. I looked at Yvain, but he did not return my gaze.

I checked Kailash’s communications that night, and one correspondent had recommended that he take hsotages. The correspondent said that in the military, they would send out armed drones to surround a village and keep any insurgents from leaving. An ancient and honored technique, the insurgents would starve, perhaps run out of water before food, and eventually surrender. Only a handful of times in any country’s numerous wars did insurgents allow their numbers, including civilians, to starve.

Hunger is a powerful force.

They let us out, followed us with knives. Kailash handed me the duty roster and I, who have never divided tasks before, told everyone their assignments. Those of us who were neutral were paired on tasks with the unionizers, forcing us into confined spaces and long days with an agitated group. Assigned partners were divided up for the long day. I had to work with Suharto, whose dark stare into the distance was almost audible. We replaced all the filters in the air system, and ensured the algae still belched oxygen.

I admit that I have grown to like working in the air filtration system. It is mindless work, repetitive, easy to teach. In the algae rooms, the air is fresh. Only the air sitting in the main rooms of Rabbah gets stale with our panting, angry breaths.

Suharto is not good at this task. He is one of the men who hardly performed manual labor on Earth. He stuck by Zariah as often as possible, riding on her computer expertise I’m sure. She might have crazy ideas, but she can handle circuitry with ease. I don’t remember seeing Suharto actually work on a crystal core, I only assumed he had been smart enough to pick up the basics and work hard. But he fumbled the filters and scraped his fingers many times. I was afraid I would have to stitch him up with whatever thread was lying around, and with no antibiotics, I couldn’t guarantee that he would survive.

Perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing, I thought. But I pushed the thought away – after Vahan, no one deserved to die. Suharto would not have chosen to send Vahan to his death if he had known. At least the unionizers have an abstract appreciation for life, even if they don’t understand that their actions could cause death in a more personal sense. I pushed that thought away, too, and shoved Suharto to the side to fix the mess he began making with the filter.

We hauled the filters into a storage room to scrape the collected dust off, and hope we would find a good number to reuse. Fletcher and Bulus were organizing crates full of compost for Durada, adding older compost to newer batches so it would take on some of the active cultures. Fletcher gagged – he might be Ikin, but he had become unused to hard labor in the few months that he had been here. He sat with Rusul and Kailash and talked and swallowed painkillers.

My eyes grew hot and I looked away.

Suharto dropped his crate of filters with a loud thud, and Fletcher flinched, glaring daggers at the former army man. I walked between them to redirect their gaze, and scraped layers of black dust off the filter into the compost bin.

“They forced you to work with us, I see,” Suharto sneered at Fletcher, while scraping grime from a filter.

“That one isn’t worth salvaging,” I said loudly, “It looks as though it has been used a few times before. We should just replace it. Start a pile for recycling.” I pointed at the floor. Suharto tossed the filter to the floor, but did not take his eyes off Fletcher.

Fletcher smirked. “I am surprised that a Bakalov would abandon all his ideals for a tight pussy.”

I tensed to catch Suharto if he lunged, although I would probably only hurt myself, but he cackled instead. “You think that is why I want to separate from Earth? You haven’t been on the front lines of our pointless wars. I’ve killed people for ideals I barely understand. You, I’m surprised by – you’re told you’re not even human and you work in fields like animals, you’re fed like animals, penned and moved from place to place like animals, and yet you, an Ikin, think Breathe Easy is worth fighting for.”

Fletcher glared. “I worked to join that society. It is the best protection there is from insurgents and violent storms. When was the last time one of your cities was attacked by a hurricane, huh? Or a terrorist? The outlying Araboa territories are fraught with violence, from within and without, as armies try to get into your country to destroy it. Violent waves eat our shores, our homes, and even people. Coming from the Araboa, I am smarter than you caste people, but joining your society kept me alive. Working with Breathe Easy keeps me alive.”

“If neither of you work, none of us will be alive!” I snapped. Fletcher laughed. Suharto gave me a dirty look.

“Stab me in my sleep later, Suharto,” I said. “Finish cleaning these filters so we can breathe for now.”

Ten hours later, I stumbled into my room, and Yvain was already lying on the bed. I had not spent the night with him in a couple of weeks, and I stood exhausted in the door, unable to think but unable to give up on my reluctance to be with him.

He looked up at me when I entered. “What has kept you away, Aelis?”

“Suharto is a dull student,” I replied.

He shook his head and sat up to look at me straight on. “These last several weeks, you have been working instead of coming to bed. Something happened in your mind to keep you away. What is it?”

I couldn’t look at him. “What did I do to you?” he persisted.

My eyes were hot again, and dry. I blinked to clear the film beginning to cover my vision, sharpening the view to the gray floor. I finally said, “I am afraid of what you’ve taught the anti-unionizers. I am afraid of why they want this. This colony.”

He nodded. “I thought that might be it. You think I trained them to hurt. I did not.”

I finally looked at him.

“It’s true,” he said. “I had them run circles around the common room, and do push-ups, and lift crates and walk them back and forth. I had them meditate, and focus. But I did not teach them any combat moves. I did not encourage them to make weapons. That was Rusul’s idea, and Kailash researched it. They wanted to hurt, so they found a pattern to print knives. Haven smiled at Vahan and encouraged him to die for the cause. Budur would tremble and look delicate and Kailash would surge into action, when otherwise he was all words. They have all become homicidal together and I could not stop them. I tried to exhaust them, but I could not stop them.”

I looked deep into his eyes. They sagged with dark weights, from a long struggle. I chose to believe him and crawled into bed. His arms were comforting.