135: LUNCH

Captain Klees is the last of us to get checked over; whether by accident or design, I’m not sure. He stomps into the living dome we’ve been assigned, pulls his helmet off, and drops into a chair at the cast plastic table we’re all seated around.

“She give you the deep burn too?” I ask in Texan. (We speak Texan amongst ourselves, on the assumption that we’re probably being monitored and, while it would be rude to actually speak in code, we might discuss things that could be undiplomatic. It’s not impossible that our hosts also speak Texan – the oldest amongst them lived through a time where they expected an influx of 5,000 colonists, most of whom were Texan, after all – but it’s unlikely enough, and they definitely speak the Interlingua. Speaking in Texan is a good balance of probably secret while still being defensibly natural; why wouldn’t a primarily Texan group speak Texan among themselves?)

The others frown at me, puzzled. “Deep burn?” Tal asks.

“You know.” I wave a hand vaguely. “The questioning.”

“Ah!” Captain Klees grins. “The ‘third degree’. Yes, she did. It seems you were right, Aspen, about the attitudes here. Did you see how people stared at us when we came in?”

“That part doesn’t mean anything,” Tinera says. “They thought they were alone out here and we dropped out of space. They’d stare even if they wanted us here. What’s everyone’s thoughts on these disease measures?”

“Insufficient,” the Friend says. “These people clearly have no practice with [unknown word] at all. This dome we’re in now isn’t even properly sealed from the open air, and while we are on the edge of the colony, air transmission is still possible. If we have anything, we could be giving it to them.”

“They probably don’t deal with diseases you can give other people very often,” I say, glancing around the dome. It’s airtight-ish, with a seal on the door and some kind of sealant slathered over the repairs in the canvas, but I have no doubt that it leaks. The door has no airlock, and an atmospheric pump hums away against the wall, replacing the oxygen let out by Captain Klees’ entrance. The facilities and furniture are as worn as the canvas, and I have no idea whether it’s a spare that belonged to somebody now dead, or whether the colony moved a family out to house us. At one time, somebody put a deep scratch in the plastic table; at one time, somebody hid a complicated canvas repair in a nest of embroidered flowers and coated it in sealant. But I don’t know if those people are living or dead.

“Speaking of air transmission, should we be worried about the air?” Tinera asks.

“Yes.” The Friend glances at the pump in the corner. “But there’s not much we can do about it. This place appears to have no contained [unknown], and we didn’t bring enough air with us to live forever.”

“We can set up the emergency life support when the Hylarans bring our equipment from the drop pod,” Captain Klees says, “but I think we just have to live with some contamination. It’s not the first health risk we’ve taken and it won’t be the last. More importantly, the idea that the ship isn’t wanted here is worrying. What’s the right thing to do about this?”

Everyone looks at me.

“What?”

“You’re the sociologist,” Tinera points out.

“Sociologist, not morals expert,” I counter, struggling to find suitable words in Texan. (I should’ve practiced more on the ship, why didn’t I practice more on the ship?) “The right thing depends on your morals. You might say, one generation isn’t a culture; you might say, we were sent to supply them by the same people they were sent by, that this is our colony as much as them. That a handful of decades late doesn’t matter and settling here loses nothing of importance. Or instead you might say, okay, we put everything in their hands and let them tell us what Hylara will be, it is their planet and we make no decisions – but what if they say, okay we will take the resources and take a very long time with the colonists, and they die with Kae Jin’s crew on a broken ship? What if they say, good, we need convict workers, and they built what we were trying to avoid? Probably they will not, but they may argue among themselves forever, their children may claim power over our children, and where is the line? There must be somewhere where we say ‘no’ or our children say ‘no’, yes?

“Or instead you might say, okay, any cultural change from outside bigger culture is contamination, their culture is small and we must protect it completely; so the ship abandons us and settles on the other side of the planet. But look at this canvas! They must be getting low on supplies. No plants outside, did you see? So their food growing is contained. What when that canvas fails? What when these pumps fail?” I gesture at the pump oxygenating our tent. “We abandon their children to die? Or we give them our things and make our children more likely to die?

“So perhaps you say, okay, we land somewhere else that is too far to get to easy, but you can still get to. Trading range. We set up and when we know better what we will and won’t need, when we have… when we can build our own things, we give them help. We let them come to us if they want, let our children go to them if they will accept them. Let them choose to be bought and out-traded by a much bigger, stronger culture; then it’s not our fault, you might think. If they choose to trade with us, or their children choose to abandon a dying colony to live with us.

“All of these are things that can happen. Which is right? I will say, we do not risk the worst, biggest problems with…” I cast about for a Texan word for ‘colonisation’ and don’t find it… “this kind of thing. Normally, biggest problems are when local population is slavesorkilled, when their culture is killed on purpose, their art and words not allowed, their children stolen. Also, fifty years isa very young culture; not long enough to too many important rites and… thoughts and… pieces. There still will be some. It only takes one generation for a culture. But probably not many; they will be very similar to us. Most problems come from deliberate cruelty, deliberate… stealing and slaving… deliberate killing of culture, saying ‘we are better and we will either make you serve us, or make you be like us’. We will not have those problems. But, real issue still remains – they will survive best with our resources. Our colonists will survive best with our resources and with them. Anything other than doing exactly what the Hylarans fear puts lives at risk. This conflict will not change.”

“So, what do you think is the right thing to do?” Tinera asks.

I shrug. “Ask the Hylarans. Dr Kim has not been secret with her concerns. Hive and Max were more friendly, but they were chosen to deal with us, so they must know what the concerns are. If we are friendly and harmless, we can wait for them to talk to us in a friendly way. We can see what their government is like, what their lives are like, what they need and what their concerns are. What exactly are they worried about? We find out, exactly. We see how they do things, and they are probably similar to how we do things. They probably have a reasonable government and reasonable laws already, we will just be increasing their population. We find out what they need and how we can fit our colonists in, we act as contact with Kae Jin for them. You know. Do our jobs. We can worry all day about whether their culture is worth protection or whether they own Hylara or not, but that all doesn’t matter; those questions are for historians. We have people who arescared that bullies will make their lives worse. We don’t want to be bullies. We make friends and we ask what they want instead of telling them what they want. It’s all very simple.”

“Simple, they say,” Captain Klees mutters, shaking his head.

“Very simple in theory,” I amend.

There’s a polite rap on the door frame, and a moment later, Max steps inside, a large package in their arms. “Helloooo! I hear you all passed health inspection with flying colours! We’re just waiting on the pathologies, right?”

They’re wearing some sort of jumpsuit that looks to be made from the same sort of canvas as our living dome. It’s baggy in some areas and tight in others – not custom fitted, so probably not something everyone owns; either the outfit is a historical relic in limited supply (extremely unlikely; it looks nothing like a space suit), or it’s some work outfit from someone else hastily repurposed into a quarantine barrier. It wasn’t custom made for this task, unless they changed liaisons at the last minute, or it’d be custom fit to Max’s body.

Their helmet is covered by a transparent dome, far less sophisticated than a space suit helmet. It looks fairly fragile; I suppose it doesn’t need to deal with pressure differences or need radiation shielding in it or anything. I don’t see any electronics in there, but there must be a microphone somewhere, because Max’s words emanate from a small speaker at the base of the front of the dome. They drop the packages on the table, which gives me a chance to see the outfit close up; white canvas stitched with tiny black stitches and coated in a sealant. The stitches are almost perfectly even, but not quite, if you know what you’re looking for. Hand sewn, by an expert. Interesting. The colony has an AutoDoc; they surely have sewing machines.

I can’t see the whole outfit, because Max wears their usual tunic over it. A small canister is clipped to their belt, a little hose from it snaking under the tunic and presumably into whatever air supply system allows Max to breathe inside the suit. Whatever it is, it’s light and simple.

Everyone else is less interested in the potential social and economic implications of outfit design than I am. They start opening packages, which turn out to be wrapped bricks of food and bottles of water.

“How about a tour of our colony after lunch?” Max asks.

“That would be great, Max, thank you,” Captain Klees says, and sinks his teeth into what looks like some sort of protein brick. I take one myself and give it a nibble. It tastes better than the preserved food on the Courageous – soft, a little sweet, kind of like a really dense muffin.

Max politely leaves us alone to eat, although it’s obvious they don’t want to. The Friend calls after them as they head for the door. “If you’re going anywhere near the other colonists, you should disinfect the outside of that environment suit first,” it says.

“Yes, yes, contaminated air, I understand,” Max says as they leave.

I take anther bite of the soft brown brick, frowning. Salt, sugar. A fair amount of oil, but… hmm.

“You okay, Aspen?” Tal asks me in Texan.

I chew thoughtfully. “I wonder about their food making process. This is very strange.”

“It’s not that different to the preserved stuff on the ship. The stuff that’s in brick, I mean, obviously.”

“Yes, preserved. Is strange for a colony, yes? No plants outside. Their growing is contained. So, they probably make fresh food all the time, right? Harvest and eat quickly. Processing it is a lot of work, too much work, doesn’t need to happen.” I take another bite. “I see brick of food, I think, algae cultures. You can feed a colony on algae cultures. But process algae does not look or taste like this, not anywhere I have had it. The only reason to process something this much is if you need to, to preserve it or move it or remove poisons or add things. What are they growing to make this?”

“Are we sure they’re growing food at all?” Captain Klees asks. “Maybe it’s from the supplies their ancestors took down.”

“They are nearly four hundred people, there is no way they still have food from that. Even if they did, they would say something to the ship, right? Ask us to bring food down with us?”

“It is strange,” the Friend agrees. “The open air and lack of [unknown] also suggests no radiation or toxic dust. If they had to worry about radioactive dust and suchlike, cleaning off the truck and Max’s suit and soforth would be second nature to them.”

“We can ask Max about that kind of thing when they come back, right?” Tal says. “They did promise us a tour.”

“Yep.” Tinera takes a too-large bite and grins. “Eat faster, everyone! When Max comes back, we want to be ready to have all our questions answered, don’t we?”

I can’t wait.