074: CULPABILITY

My arm feels normal again by the time our little holiday is up. It still moves a little clumsily, which is probably a sign that I’m getting too old for this shit, if one night of wrong sleep can hurt my arm for days. Or maybe it’s a lingering effect of chronostasis. No matter how many maintenance drugs you pump into a person, it’s hard for a body to recover completely from several months comatose in a chronostatic field.

I should count myself lucky that I didn’t lose any organs. Celi’s still on a restricted diet while kes new liver grows, but there have been no further complications. Ke’s been cleared for full duty, meaning we have three doctors now. And Captain Sands’ paranoia about the new crew must have been a passing moment of stress, because he’s talking about reviving another group of people.

“We have too many people!” I declare to Adin and Denish while we sit around pretending to get work done in Greenhouse Ring 1. “I liked it when it was just the seven of us. And Captain Sands wasn’t too much of a change. But fourteen people? How are we all supposed to keep track of each other?”

“Well, we have a few years together,” Adin points out. He looks pretty steady, but rubs his hands together fitfully. He’s been doing that a lot since the neurostim detox. “I’m sure that’s plenty of time to get to know each other.”

“We still have group,” Denish assures me, putting his arm around my shoulders. “But a full crew will be good, yes? Less work for each of us, more people to talk to.”

“More people to potentially react badly,” Adin says, tapping his chest over the kill switch to make his point, “but the captain’s been relaxing a lot over time and we have a critical mass of friends now, so I’m not quite so worried about that.”

“Does Heli know?” I ask, remembering her and Adin in Storage Ring 2. That’s not the kind of secret it’s a good idea to keep between a couple.

He blushes and looks away. “Yeah. She does.”

“So you guys have spoken to everyone. Good.”

“We did not speak to Heli,” Denish says, sounding a little surprised.

“She figured it out,” Adin explains. “She had access to a whole bunch of all of our medical files for trying to figure out the genetic engineering thing, remember? She’s seen the kill switches on the X-rays.”

“And she knew what they were?” I ask.

“Yeah. Why?”

I rub my chin. “We already assumed that everyone in what Tiny calls the ‘leadershipgroup’ knew they were going to a colony powered by convict labour. That’s not a great endictment of a person, but it’s not horribly surprising – every country with a prison labour force is complicit in that sort of thing already, it’s something most people just don’t think about. But both Heli and Captain Sands also knew about the kill switches. Cel was in that group, too; someone should ask kem if ke knows about them.”

“You think that everyone in that group knows about the kill switches.”

“Maybe.”

“And that that says worse things about them than just knowing about the convicts.”

“Of course it does.”

Adin cocks his head. “Does it, though?”

“What do you mean, does it? Knowing that you’re in a civilisation that uses convict labour and knowing that you’re in a civilisation that puts kill switches in them in case of disobedience are absolutely two different things! Anyone who would agree to that is – what?!”

The boys are exchanging a glance.

“I think perhaps, Aspen,” Denish says, “you did not think all the way through?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well,” Adin says, “you worked on Luna for a year, right? Was there any convict labour involved in anything you did?”

“Not really. I mean, the cleaning service that my residence used was convict labour, yeah. Which shocked me a little at first, but you just kind of stop thinking about it after awhile.” I can feel my cheeks getting warm. “I mean, it… it’s hard to get decent temporary accommodation on Luna, you kind of have to take what you can get. And that’s kind of my point; many normal people would make that choice. But if the cleaning service was using kill switches I would’ve said fuck that job and stayed home instead.”

“You sure?” Denish asks.

“What kind of question is – ?!”

“Aspen.” Adin’s voice is neutral, calm. Non-judgemental. “You know that most Lunari convicts are used for dangerous things like mining labour, right? And that most of them die working long before they can finish their sentence?”

“Yeah.”

“So safer, easier work like cleaning homes is in very high demand. Now, in the ‘kill switch’ scenario that you’re imagining, where the threat of death hangs over your cleaning staff if they’re difficult or dangerous enough, that sounds pretty horrifying, I’m sure. But in the actual situation that exists, what do you think happens to them if they’re difficult or dangerous? Or even if they’re just not very good at cleaning? What do you think happens if they look at a snooty client and she takes offense and they get complained about one too many times for being ‘disrespectful’?”

“Mines,” Denish cuts in before I can answer. “Longer, more painful death sentence.”

My face isn’t warm any more. I think most of my blood has left it. “That’s not… I didn’t…”

“That’s not what we’re saying,” Adin says quickly. “We’re not saying there’s anything wrong with moving to Luna for awhile. You’re not responsible for their prison system. We’re saying that, in a situation like this where there is a lot of difficult and dangerous work to be done like, say, terraforming Hylara, the existence of a kill mechanism doesn’t make any appreciable difference. The choice that you just said plenty of normal people make isn’t any different to the one you’re condemning this leadership group for making. Chances are they just didn’t really think about it, same as you didn’t with the cleaning staff. Why would they? Most of them aren’t going to have jobs managing us. They’re just excited for a new home, making a new mark in history.”

“And your plan destroyed our kill switches anyway!” Denish says cheerfully, slapping me on the shoulder and nearly knocking me to the floor. “So do not look sad.”

“Yeah, the question is how we can deactivate the thousands of other convicts’ implants,” I say. “I don’t think we can just dip colonists through the ship’s shielding as they wake up without the captain noticing.”

“We still have years to – ”

“Yeah, we keep saying that, but eventually we’re not going to have years to figure that out any more. Anyway, I still think there’s too many people now. We don’t need a full crew of twenty one just yet, it’s going to get confusing.”

“I like the new people,” Adin says. “Well, mostly.”

If he’s dating Heli, he probably does. I shrug. “The captain should wait another year and let us all get used to each other again. Then the next seven can be a fun novelty for everyone again. Space out the socialisation.”

“You worked at universities, yes?” Denish asks. “In cities? Many people?”

“That’s different. You can have a bunch of casual friends or colleagues or whatever, but a crew has to be different to just casual colleagues.”

“Does it?”

“Well, yeah.”

“You sound like my mum,” Adin says. “How big was your family on Earth? Your, um, your cluster?”

“Uh, nine people, including me. Why?”

“No reason, just curious.” He rubs his hands together again.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” I ask.

“Me? Just fine. Why?”

“It’s just been a lot for you. With the whole genetic engineering thing, and the, the nerve stuff.”

“I’m fine. Plenty of people have much worse damage after taking neurostims.”

“And the genetic engineering?”

He shrugs. “Not much to do about it now, is there? Either it gives us some kind of weird cancer or it doesn’t. Oh, that reminds me; Renn mentioned in passing that he’s put together enough from those journals you found to make a coherent story, and apparently, it’s a lot. He said he’ll be ready to present his findings really soon.”

“He’s almost finished translating? Already?”

“No, he says a lot of it is completely untranslateable. Because of Captain Kinoshita’s unfamiliar shorthand. But what he has is interesting, apparently.”

“I wonder if he’s busy right now…”

“He’s not going to give you a hint. Trust me, I tried.”

“Nobody is any fun on this ship!” I grouse. Just then, the airlock opens, and Tal and Sunset both stumble in. They’re stumbling because they are wearing the highest heeled shoes I’ve ever seen, apparently homemade from our vast supply of indoor slippers and copious quantities of shiny silver tape. (I can’t tell how they made the heels. They’re all covered in tape.) Both of them are giggling, wearing outfits that look to be made of various garish scarves draped over their bodies, and caked in enough bright makeup to make Tal’s tattoos look tame.

“Oh, hey!” Tal points at us. “Makeovers!”

“No,” I say immediately.

“Yes.” They lurch toward us. We all take a step back.

“We can outrun them,” Adin says uncertainly. “They’re clumsy, in those shoes. We can get away, I’m sure.”

“Tal’s pretty fast,” I point out, still backing away. “If we run, it might trigger their prey drive and you’ve seen what Tal can do in full zeelite mode. Maybe we can hide in the plants?”

“In this confined greenhouse ring? No. They’ll find us for sure.”

“You two run,” Denish says in a low voice. “I will distract them.”

“ ‘Nish. No.”

“I will be fine.”

“Denish, they’re going to put so much makeup on you. Look at their nails! They’re sparkling in rainbow stripes!”

“On a ship, one must make sacrifices. I have endured worse. I will be fine. Just run! Run!”

I’m a coward. I run, Adin on my heels. Behind me, I hear Denish greet the zeelites enthusiastically.

“He was a brave man,” Adin notes solemnly as we go through the airlock.

“His sacrifice will be remembered,” I vow.

We stumble into Network and Engineering Ring 1. There’s some kind of conversation happening at the computer terminals; I head over and peek around the petitions to see Renn, Tinera, Lina, and one of the Friends (the non-doctor one) engaged in a game of Lunari checkers. Tinera has a triangular piece of metal dangling from her ear and her scalp is painted in silver geometric patterns.

“The zeelites are in a mood today,” she explains.

“We saw. But you’re the last person I’d expect to give in.”

“They looked really sad when I said no. Want to play?”

“I don’t know the rules,” I admit.

“You spent a year on Luna and didn’t learn how to play Lunari Checkers?”

“I’m not really a board game kind of person. Renn, Adin says you might have something interesting in Kinoshita’s notes?”

“I’ll present my findings with everybody very soon. I just want to double-check a few things with the AI first.”

“Hello, everyone,” Captain Sands greets us, coming around a partition into view. He’s wearing silver eyeshadow and lipstick, and a shiny silver miniskirt. “You have something, Renn?”

“I will very soon, yes. You have nice legs, captain.”

“Why, thank you.”

“How did you let them get you?” I ask. Captain Sands andTinera?

He shrugs. “Somebody was bound to have an unusual response to all of this recent stress. I’m just happy they aren’t breaking anything. Aspen, I’ll need you to ask them later about where they’re getting their supplies. I doubt this clothing is in our stores so I hope they haven’t cut up anything important.”

“It’s garment broadcloth from the main colony supply,” the Friend says. “This Friend sewed the garments for them.”

“Why?” I ask.

It shrugs. “Because they asked?”

Given how many colonists we’ve lost, we should have a pretty big oversupply of garment broadcloth. I’ll check later to make sure, though.

“Okay,” the captain says, “while I’m here, does anybody have any specific concerns over the next crew revive session?”

“Yeah, we don’t need to revive anyone else right now,” I say.

“This ship will function best with a full crew, and the faster we revive as many CR5 colonists as possible, the better. I meant, do we need any specific types of scientists or anything like that?”

“I don’t think reviving more CR5 colonists saves anyone,” Tinera says. “I mean, we’re not one hundred per cent sure of the details, but everything we’ve got suggests that when the AI thinks it needs another brain, it grabs one, right? And we’re not going to be able to revive everyone at risk. So reviving people at risk takes the danger off them, but increases everyone else’s chance of getting chosen – it doesn’t save anyone, it just picks and chooses who gets taken.”

Captain Sands doesn’t look surprised or confused by this logic. I’m struck with the sudden thought that while CR5 presumably has eighty per cent convicts like everywhere else, all of the captain’s revival choices have been non-convicts. Is this something he’s doing on purpose? Putting convicts at more risk to save more non-convicts?

I shake the thought off. Inventing new things to be suspicious about isn’t helpful.

“On top of that,” I say, “we don’t need a full crew to keep this ship working efficiently. We’re doing just fine now. A bigger crew just puts more strain on the systems. The only reason the crew’s so big in the first place is to protect everyone’s psychological health since it’s such along journey, but given recent circumstances, I think adding more people right now would just cause more stress. Renn, you’re the psychologist; back me up here.”

“I think the full complement of twenty one would be more healthy, psychologically,” Renn says, “but I think you should wait until I’ve finished with Dr Kinoshita’s notes. There is some vitally interesting information that might affect your crew selection.”

Captain Sands’ eyebrows go up. “Really. I look forward to your translation. Well, I’ll start preparing a list, but we’ll wait for Renn’s report first.”

“It’s going to be more fucked up mad science, isn’t it,” Tinera mumbles into her hands.

“There is indeed ‘fucked up mad science’ involved, yes,” Renn says.

Tinera throws her hands up. “Of course there is. We’re out of reach of any human law enforcement so why not just throw the Autonomy Accords out the fucking window? Let’s start genetically engineering people without telling them! Let’s jam a bunch of synnerves into their brains and use them as computer processors! Why not? Next we’ll find out there’s a fucking Lyson project at work on this ship, and if we do, I’m stabbing someone in the neck.” She points to a spot on her own neck. “Right here.”

“The brain hijacking thing is sort of like a Lyson project,” Adin points out.

I shake my head. “Sticking synnerves in someone’s brain is totally different. It’s only a Lyson project if they deliberately kill specific brain tissue to modify human memory, performance, personality or behaviour.”

“There are some truly fascinating Lyson projects out there,” Renn says conversationally. “I’m a great fan of Dr Lyson’s work.”

Everyone is silent for a moment.

“Um,” Adin says. “You mean theoretically, right? Like she made great strides forward in neuroscience, and it’s good to know more about the brain in a theoretical capacity even though we shouldn’t make practical use of it?”

“Well, I think there is some practical use of it to be made. Obviously, it’s a technology with room for abuse, but I think humanity greatly overreacted by banning brain-damage-based behavioural modification almost completely. The existing ‘mad science’ on this ship aside, there are some advantages to be setting up a civilisation beyond the reach of the Autonomy Accords.”