148: WAR

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The next day, I wake up feeling… off. There’s some sort of strange pressure in my head. Not a headache, exactly, but something unusual. A weird… taste? No, rinsing my mouth out does nothing. Shielding my eyes or turning the lights out does help. Some kind of strange migraine, maybe? I’ve never had migraines before. If this is a synnerve thing then –

Ah. Synnerves. I experiment with blocking the light from just my robot eye. Yep, that’s it. Data from my robot eye.

It’s meaningless, of course. I can’t make any sense of it; I can’t ‘see’ anything. It’s just a weird sensation that’s there now, I guess, in the presence of light. I already know that Dr Kim is with Mama today, refreshing her surgery training in case there are any unforeseen problems with the robot doing Captain Klees’ ankle; I decide against bothering her or seeking out another doctor. The eye thing is expected, and the good news can wait.

I know vaguely how this sensory adaptation is supposed to work. In time, my brain should learn how to process this input, same as it learned how to process the input of my real eye. Unless it doesn’t. It’s entirely possible that it won’t. But it should.

Probably.

We’ll just have to wait and see, I guess.

“We have to tell the ship about this Vault situation,” Captain Klees says over breakfast. (We speak the Interlingua; there’s no reason to keep secrets about this.) “It dictates everything about the landing process. The question is, do the Hylarans have anything to fear from us? The sleeping colonists greatly outnumber us. If the majority decide that we should have control of that Vault…”

We sit in silence. Look at each other. Wait for somebody else to put forward the obvious solutions, the ugly ones that nobody wants to say, but that we can’t really ignore.

Tinera takes the plunge. Not looking up from her food brick, she says quietly, “Most of them still have active kill switches.”

None of us vehemently disagree; not because we agree with such a plan, but because we all thought it, and it’s not fair to gang up on Tinera just because she’s the one brave enough to say it. We all just sit glumly for a moment.

“It’s just a security measure against starting a war,” she says quietly, reluctantly. “Nobody’s suggesting a convict colony. And we’re talking about safeguarding the future of an entire planet here.”

The Friend clears its throat. “It wouldn’t work. This is a problem that’s not going to go away for as long as we’re two separate populations, and that will last for generations, most likely. How would we stop the next generation from assuming control and oppressing off killing off the Hylarans? We need to do this in some way that ensures everyone’s safety for longer than the lives of our colonists. The kill switches are irrelevant.”

We all breathe a sigh of relief. The Friend’s point also countermands the second possibility, which is to try to selectively revive only colonists who we think won’t start trouble and leave the rest to die. A non-starter in its own right, since our revivals thus far have shown just how bad we are at judging that. But I’m glad that nobody has to even bring it up.

“This entire problem becomes a non-issue,” I point out, “if the two populations can quickly integrate and think of themselves as one people. Antarctica is no threat with us here; they lost all of their power the moment the Hylarans and the Courageous started talking. They need the Vault operational and they can’t withhold food or medicine while we can supply it. And control over the Vault is an issue only while there’s two populations that might vie for it. If we can integrate well, slip the colonists into the existing culture, we have no problem here.”

“And what are the chances of that happening?” Captain Klees asks.

“Minimal. I’d love to be able to tell you otherwise, Captain, but traditionally speaking this doesn’t tend to go great, not with the sheer number of people we’re bringing. A small injection of foreigners can integrate, or keep their own culture within a new foreign culture, but this… it’s not a matter of appearance or biology. We’re going to have people on both sides who hate the other side on sight based on that, based on the other side being different and ‘not like us’; you always do, but that’s not the depth of the problem. Our cultures and Hylaran culture are fundamentally different in basic structural ways that are obvious even from the very little information we have. Child rearing, for instance – how are the colonists going to react to the Hylaran family structure? Mama and the set structure is fundamentally incompatible with the family structures of the people aboard, on a much more fundamental level than the differences between, say, Texan families and Arborean clusters. The two populations can be neighbours and allies, but we have to expect a high level of tribalism for the entire foreseeable future unless at least one culture radically changes to align with the other. And the main issue here is the history – both sides can claim good reason to resent and mistrust the other. The Hylarans built this colony themselves, holding on despite never getting the help they were promised, and now we show up and change everything – it makes perfect sense that many of them would see this as their planet, that we have no claim to. The Courageous colonists were promised a new home and a clean slate. Some came willingly and some unwillingly, but nobody signed up for this. Nobody signed up for forty years in deep space only to be told that the planet belongs to someone else and we have to play by their rules. There’s going to be challenges, there’s going to be resentment, there’s going to be conflict. The possibility of one group enslaving or completely eliminating the other… isn’t an unrealistic fear. Personally, I don’t think it’ll come to that; different cultures have cooperated within one society just fine in the past, it happens all the time. We can agree on some sort of combined government and system of law and both groups as a whole can make it through. But it’s going to be rough on individuals in any realistic scenario.”

“And what do you think our best strategy is? To minimise future problems?”

I chew my breakfast and think a moment. “The way to make things easiest for ourselves in the very short term would be to set up a separate colony within trade distance and trade food for raw materials from the Vault, but that assumes the cooperation of Antarctica, which I don’t think we can assume. They starved the Hylarans once; why would they give them trade goods to buy food? Anyway, it’s a recipe for war. If our trade power relies on control of farm seeds and theirs relies on control of the Vault, it’s just begging one side to invade the other. No; we need to do this together.”

“The actual easiest thing would be to send down all the terraforming plants and crops and stuff,” Tal chips in, “and then the Courageous suddenly blows up when one of its broken systems fails, and kills all the colonists.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” I say, feeling ill.

“Xanthe says that the ship is safe and secure for the foreseeable future,” Captain Klees says, “and I for one trust the crew’s judgement on that. They’ve got Denish, who knows the ship as it is, and Sam, who can pilot the ship as it is to keep it in orbit, and a whole lot of people who survived twenty years up there.” He gives Tal a humourless smile. “So I don’t think we can be saved by any convenient little accidents outside of our control this time. No more carbon monoxide-style problems to save us from hard decisions.”

“Fuck, that’s dark,” Tinera says, brows going up. “Are you two feeling alright?”

“You two should speak to a therapist,” I say. “We have a real one now. And they’re our radio contact, so. You can just radio them up.”

“Yeah, talk about all your feelings and fears on the ship communication channel,” Tinera says. “Give any Hylarans listening in on the radio signal some fun drama to spy on.”

“If everyone is quite done with the unusually dark and cutting banter,” the Friend says, “perhaps we should contact the ship. Solutions or no, they do need to know about the Vault immediately. If only to properly prioritise drops and plan revivals.”

We finish breakfast, and Tal immediately heads for the computer. The rest of us wait for Max to come by. We hang around, play games, and worry for a while.

And then a while longer.

Max had said the night before that they’d come by ‘after breakfast’, and we’re well out of the part of the morning that Max considers breakfast time. “They’re probably held up,” Tinera shrugs. “We should go have a look around on our own.”

“Politically very inadviseable,” the Friend says. “If these people are worried about invasion from the rude, pushy Earth people, we should be on our best behaviour, not sneak off the minute we get bored.”

“They might be testing us for that very thing,” Captain Klees says. “I’m sure Max will show up soon. Of course, given everything that’s going on, there’s a chance that something bad has happened.”

“If it has,” I say, “there’s not a whole lot we can achieve by getting involved.”

Captain Klees nods. “What do you think, Tal?”

“Mmm?” Tal doesn’t even push kes computer visor back.

“About Max being late.”

“Who? Oh. I’m sure they won’t be late. Why?”

“Interesting computer program, huh?” Tinera asks drily.

“It’s very unusual,” Tal says. And, to my shock, doesn’t immediately launch into a long, incomprehensible explanation, but quiets down and focuses back on the computer.

“While we seem to have time, Aspen,” the Friend says, “this Friend should probably have a look at your eye.”

“Does that Friend know anything about what experimental synnerves growing into the brain to transmit data from a new robot eye are supposed to feel like?”

“It does not.”

“Fantastic, we can learn together.” We head to the bedroom, and I let the Friend hold up different coloured objects and shine lights in my eyes and things like that for a while. I learn absolutely nothing about how to see with my new eye.

A few more hours pass.

“Okay, fuck this,” Tinera says. “It’s one thing to be willing to play ball, Captain, but we really can’t set a precedent of being okay to fuck with.”

Captain Klees nods. “Anyone who wants to see what’s going on, get ready to head out.”

“Are you coming, Tal?” I ask Tal.

“Hmm? What?”

“Never mind.”

We leave Tal to kes computer analysis and head out of the tent. The settlement seems strangely deserted, with nobody bustling abut outside doing minor chores. Everyone’s either inside, or somewhere else. Was there some kind of safety lockdown we hadn’t been told about? It might be coincidence; maybe there’s not much to be done outside right now.

Then we look in the other direction, up to the radio tower. And the source of the disturbance is made clear.

The big dish and multiple smaller pieces of equipment sit on the ground beneath the tower, broken from their fall. Fire doesn’t burn well in an atmosphere like this, but the white parts of the setup still show clear scorch marks. A handful of people are moving about the rubble, tunics shimmering against the dull sand.

“Okay,” Captain Klees says. “So something was indeed wrong.”

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