075: RECIDIVISM

The other five of us – me, Adin, Tinera, Captain Sands, and the non-doctor Public Universal Friend – all stare at Renn.

“You cannot be serious,” Tinera says. “Lyson projects are outlawed for a reason. They used brain damage to control ‘uncontrollable’ kids! They made work forces of zombies! The whole practice is completely unjustifiable!”

“Unregulated, yes. Many technologies are dangerous when they’re unregulated. But it does have its uses – look at our Friend here, for example. The Public Universal Friends have made fantastic use of Lyson’s technology, and it’s hard to argue against how good their society has been for humanity.”

“That’s different,” I say.

“It’s not different, but it’s equally bullshit,” Tinera says. “They shouldn’t be allowed to do it either. Jesus Christ, you can’t just fucking cut into someone’s brain to turn them into the person you want them to be!”

“You’re judging a technology by its worst uses. What of the medical benefits?”

“The medical benefits to brain damage?!” Adin asks.

“Of course. Some people have mental conditions that are simply unmanageable with drugs and therapy. Someone who is dealing with a very severe mood disorder treatable only via Lyson intervention, who cannot handle the disorder and takes their own life, is somebody who has essentially been killed by humanity’s overcaution around this technology. Someone struggling with serious homicidal urges, who kills and is imprisoned or institutionalised to prevent them from killing again, is someone who could have their own freedom as well as the lives of their victims saved if they had had access to Lyson treatment. Obviously, the technology has been greatly abused in the past, but in extreme situations, the regulated – ”

“Who regulates?” I ask. “Because that’s how it started the first time, too. Extreme mental anguish, then serious criminals, and before you know it anyone rich enough to pay off three mental health professionals can get the go-ahead to have their child’s emotions dimmed and justice systems are handing out brain damage for any remotely violent crime to build permanent, compliant work forces. There’s always loopholes.”

“There are loopholes in every justice system and every medical system. Should we remove prisons and outlaw all medicine?”

Tinera looks at Captain Sands. “Captain, are you listening to this shit? Do something!”

“What do you want me to do? Order him to change his opinion?”

“What do you think about Lyson projects, Captain?” I ask.

“Incredibly dangerous technology. Best avoided altogether.”

“This Friend disagrees.”

“I’m sorry,” Adin says, “you disagree? Aren’t you all about what’s best for people? How is brain damage best for anyone?”

“There is one example of an extremely successful application of the technology,” the Friend says. “The Public Universal Friends. There’s no reason why there couldn’t be more. If people want to change themselves for the better, they should have access to the tools to do so.”

“Is that what you think you did?” Tinera asks. “Changed yourself for the better?”

“Also, we can’t forget that it’s not usually up to those people to make that choice,” I point out. “Even when Lyson tech is purportedly voluntary, coercion is a serious concern. Especially when it’s weaponised against the mentally ill.”

“‘Weaponised’,” Renn says. “See, this is the sort of bias I’m talking about.”

As Tinera’s voice becomes painfully loud, I decide it’s time to dip out of this conversation. I walk away from the terminals in shock. I can’t believe one of my own crewmates is a supporter of Lyson projects. I can’t believe my psychologist is a supporter of Lyson projects! He’d seemed so nice!

Captain Sands is retreating too, I notice. I follow him to the airlock.

“Is he going to be a problem, do you think?” I ask.

“As ship’s psychologist, you mean? Possibly. I’d imagine that this is going to permanently damage the crew’s trust in him. Do you think I should add a replacement psychologist to the next round of revivals?”

“Probably, but I mean in terms of the colony. If we get there and he sets up a practice to cut people’s brains up…”

“Oh, I doubt that’s a concern. I imagine that the colony will follow the Autonomy Accords.”

“You ‘imagine’?”

“I expect the founding principles and laws will be determined by vote. Despite our losses so far, we should still have over seven hundred citizens. Most of them are obviously going to be reasonable people.”

I take note of the number. Over seven hundred, not over three and a half thousand. Captain sands assumes that in our new society, the convict population won’t vote. Good to know.

“Maybe,’ I say. “But ships that travel beyond the reach of established law are likely to attract people who want to be able to act beyond the reach of established law. Like, that’s a main reason for someone to sign up for a project like this – I’m still surprised our ship wasn’t hijacked by a religious cult or something. All of this mad science is worse though, and just in that little group there, there are two supporters of Lyson projects.”

“Yes, that is rather shocking, but our colonists were vetted for the Program. I’m certain there’s not enough of them who’d support something so horrible for it to be an issue.”

“You’re probably right,” I say. After all, the average person wouldn’t stand for Lyson projects, right? People were good. It wouldn’t get off the ground.

There’s been enough people for it to get off the ground the first time, before the Autonomy Accords.

I need to get to know the newer crew members. No more putting it off. I need to get to know them, because I need to get some idea of just what kinds of people the free colonists are. (Yeah, I know, Law of Small Numbers, it’s not going to be an accurate snapshot. But these are the people I have.)

I don’t want to look like I’m going on some kind of witch hunt, so I don’t immediately start cornering crewmates and asking them about their opinions on human autonomy. I wait until the next morning and casually show up to Celi’s medbay, planning to open a conversation on what ke thinks Renn might have found in Kinoshita’s notes. But I immediately forget what I’m there for when I’m confronted with the sight of Heli, eyes closed, one hand heavily bandaged and the other clenched into a tight fist, with Celi carefully gluing together cuts on her bleeding face.

“If you have non-urgent medical problem it’s going to have to wait a few minutes,” Celi says as I enter, without looking up.

“I don’t need medical attention, I just… what happened?”

“The crazy warpig attacked me,” Heli growls.

“Who?”

She opens one bloodshot eye to look at me. “Do we have more than one crazy warpig aboard?”

“I thought we had none, so.”

“She got into a fistfight with Tinera,” Celi says. “Do you need me for anything, Aspen?”

“Uh, no. Not really. Where’s Tinera?”

“The other medbay.”

“R-right. I’ll just go.”

“Tell her that if she ever touches me again I’ll break her fucking neck,” Heli says.

“I’m… I’m sure that won’t be an issue. Why did she attack you?”

“Because she’s fucking crazy?”

“Okay, but – ”

“I asked her too many questions about her hand and she just lost it.”

Yeah, that makes sense. Tinera’s never liked questions about her hand. Still, she’s never attacked anyone! As much as she might occasionally threaten to. And as aggressive as she might sometimes sound.

At least, she’s never attacked anyone on the ship. She did kill a man once, and never told us what he did to “deserve it”.

“Okay,” Celi says. “I can have a look at those teeth now. I should warn you, I’m not a dentist, but the breaks are fresh so I’m pretty sure I can just fill them.”

“And it you can’t?”

“Then they’ll have to come out. Sorry.”

Heli swears quietly. I leave. Tinera broke her teeth? Heli’s twice Tinera’s size!

Despite being a lot smaller and presumably weaker, Tinera looks to be in better shape than Heli. I catch her coming out of the other medbay, two fingers in splints and a couple of small dressings stuck to her face.

“Tiny,” I say, “what the fuck?”

“She was asking for it,” she shrugs.

“Asking for – ? We can’t have fistfights among the crew!”

“It won’t happen again.” She brushes past me. I let her go. I could stop her and yell at her, but what would that accomplish? I’m sure Captain Sands will yell at her plenty. Anyway, pulling rank on Tinera of all people to give her a dressing-down sits wrong with me, since the whole reason I outrank her is that I stole her job.

Tinera’s clearly not in the mood to give any details, so I head inside to see Lina looking through a drug cabinet. Several bottles of pills are lined up on the bench next to her. She looks up as I enter.

“Do you need help. Aspen?”

“I’m not sick, I’m just trying to figure out what happened with Heli and Tinera,” I say.

“So far as I can make out, Tinera’s under way too much stress and Heli’s rude. Definitely not the ideal response, though; we can’t have that kind of violence in such a small group that needs to work together for such a long time.”

“Are you… looking for something?” I ask, eyeing the rows of bottles.

“The opposite. The lock on this cabinet’s been broken and I just noticed it. I’m trying to determine if anything’s missing.”

“Somebody stole medicine? Why?!”

“I have absolutely no idea. It’s not like there aren’t enough doctors here to prescribe whatever’s needed. The break looks fresh, so I think it was recent, but maybe one of us doctors broke it by accident and didn’t notice?”

“Well, I guess you’ll know when you find out if anything’s missing.”

She grimaces. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, we’ve been a bit lazy when it comes to equipment use records. I can look up everyone’s files and see what they’ve been given, that’s all written down, but nobody’s bothered to keep a single regular inventory on what’s specifically been taken from or put into this specific cabinet, so determining if something’s missing could take a while.”

This is what I mean about there being too many crew awoken too quickly. Fourteen is just too many to expect to live inside a space smaller than a cluster territory for years at a time. With the initial crew, we had all kinds of personality clashes and different priorities, but nobody punched each other or stole medicines or turned out to actually think that controlling the behaviour of others via brain damage was fine actually. If the crew were still small enough to keep track of, someone would’ve seen this fight brewing in advance, and it wouldn’t have happened. At the very least, the resolution would be simple; when we used to have squabbles at home, we could resolve things in a Root Circle. You can’t have Root Circles with fourteen people.

And Captain Sands wants to pull us up to twenty one. Ridiculous.

Thinking of the captain, does he know about this yet?

I head back to the other medbay, only to see Captain Sands lingering outside it, in deep conversation with Celi. He nods, the two part, and Captain Sands strolls over to me.

“So,” he says. “Still think I’m overcautious about the behaviour of the convicts?”