by Nōnen Títi
Geveler, in contrast, was made out to have had a high regard for individuality and it was thanks to its competitive reward systems that its people now enjoyed prosperity and health: Kunism.
Another exhibit demonstrated the effect of the Intercontinental War, now four sets of years ago, when Geveler had saved the planet from Buyist domination. The pictures, some of which were real photographs, showed the desolate landscape of Seteger and the oceans surrounding it, which were still devoid of life. Scientists were hoping that within the next set, they might be able to move people back there.
Daili followed the girls to the next hall: recent history and the contamination age.
“Was it really that bad?” Anni asked looking at the photos of grey, hungry and sick people crowding the overpopulated cities and the land littered with factories.
“Well, I wasn’t around then either, you know. So I think we should believe what the scientists here are trying to tell us,” Daili answered.
None of them objected to leaving the depressing exhibits behind to focus on today. Depeter’s liberation was described as a success for all Bijari people, because everybody eventually wanted to live a Geveler lifestyle.
“No they don’t,” Laytji said, “or so many wouldn’t want to move to Kun DJar.”
The only continent still independent of Geveler was mentioned in one solemn sentence: Freberer was underdeveloped, plagued by diseases long since eradicated on Geveler and without a central government to ensure people’s well-being.
The last displays showed the efforts to reduce the population problem, like living underwater and underground; ideas which sparked Laytji’s imagination. A final chart gave evidence of the actual reduction accomplished by the procreation and age rules, stressing how well they worked.
In the corner of the room stood a row of wax dolls, each made to look like one of the Geveler presidents. The first ones were in old-fashioned military uniforms, decorated with medals of bravery; the more recent ones wore suits, equally decorated with badges of good conduct. Flogos was one of them, but there was no mention of the failed space mission to Binur during his Kor in office.
Downstairs, a small room was running a continuous screenplay about the latest project: Kun DJar.
“That’s stupid,” Laytji said. “This is the Past Times Museum and that hasn’t even started yet.”
The virtual images showed what the kabin would look like on the inside. Daili had seen sketches and plans, played them on their home processor, but this big screen made it feel as if she was walking around on the kabin. She glanced at the girls’ faces. They were equally impressed.
Back in the city streets it took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the sharp light of Bue and Bijar combined. Daili suggested they go to a café before flying back home. They didn’t eat out often so it would be a treat, though the food was still mealmax.
Two days later Brita arrived on Ketemer with her two daughters — Ina was only six — and a whole pack of fresh drinking water as a thank-you. Daili and Laytji picked them up from the wingport in one of the community’s fleet of electrovans as there was no public transport on Ketemer. During the ride home, the girls talked together in the back while Brita only smiled so now and then and left Daili feeling unsure about how to start.
“My mom wants to, but my stupid sister wants to stay here,” Daili heard Laytji say to her guests.
“Your sister is not stupid and I told you before that we can only go if all three of us agree,” she told Laytji.
“Still not fair.”
Daili couldn’t help glancing in the mirror at the girl who had so desperately talked to her but who seemed almost reluctant now. Hani was tall for her age, almost skinny. Thick, frizzy brown curls fell away behind her ears, the frame larger than the picture her thin face was. Pretty for sure. She turned her eyes away when she noticed Daili watching her.
“I’m just worried Hani will use this meeting to get me to change my mind. I’d be very embarrassed if she made a scene here,” Brita said when they were alone in Daili’s mealsroom — the girls had gone to the playground. Brita looked weary. Her pale complexion was almost transparent as she described some of her daughter’s more erratic behaviour. “I really don’t know what to do. She’s threatened to run away twice this last moon and she purposely causes trouble at Learners. She says she understands that she can’t put us in danger, but she’s asking me to let her go anyway. She doesn’t realize that to let a child go… at this age…”
“Yes, that’s impossible,” Daili agreed.
They didn’t bring the subject up with the children for the first full day of their stay. The two girls and the little one played on the beach, dressed in bathing suits, getting their skin covered with the fine sand that was too dry to mould into any shape, even inside the tide line. Anni didn’t play but she enjoyed having Ina around.
On the last evening Daili announced she’d like them all to come together for a real talk. Anni protested. She’d made arrangements to go out with some friends; she’d promised.
“Well, get on the wave and tell them I said ‘no’,” Daili told her and explained she wanted them all here to talk about the space mission.
“I don’t want to hear about your stupid journey anymore, Mom!”
Anni stormed through to the back room, making as much noise as possible because Daili had asked her to be quiet for sake of the little girl who had just gone to sleep. Great. And Brita was worried about a scene?
Before she could make up her mind whether to let Anni go or try and stop her, Daili noticed Brita talking with her daughter, so she turned around. The two younger girls ignored her request as well, too busy playing a game on the pulseboard. This was going to be fun.
“Did you little ladies hear me?” Daili asked.
The two heads quickly bent together followed by giggling. Daili pulled the partikel out of the unit.
“Hey, now you’ve ruined it!” Laytji wailed.
“Good, you can start over tomorrow before Hani goes home, but tonight we talk.”
When carrying in the drinks, Brita signalled behind Anni’s back that all was okay. Once they sat down Daili started by recalling the journey, the kabin, and the volunteers. She went over what she and Brita had talked about, stressing the guilt that would come of forcing people one way or the other. She mentioned that life on Kun DJar could turn out to be not as good as they were hoping for. When she finished she asked if they understood all that, but she was answered with silence. Anni, next to Brita on the couch, deliberately looked the other way. The younger girls were on the floor, Hani studying the carpet and Laytji biting her fingers.
“Do you understand the dilemma?” Daili asked Anni.
“Yes! I’m not stupid.”
“Laytji?”
“Yes I know, Mom. If we don’t all want to, no one goes.”
“That’s what I told you, but can you see why?” Daili insisted.
“Because it would make people angry with each other if one was unhappy.”
“That’s right. Hani, how about you?”
“I understand,” the girl answered, but still no eye-contact. It may be time to put the pressure on a bit.
“I would appreciate it if you’d look at me, so I can see if you did,” Daili said.
In an instant Hani turned her face up and repeated that she understood, her deep blue eyes on Daili’s. There was no doubt left that this little girl was the same one she had talked to over the wave. Daili gave her a smile to show her appreciation for that. Next she suggested that they all take turns giving their reason for wanting or not wanting to go to Kun DJar. First her own reasons; she had no job and she liked the idea of a whole new planet to learn what nobody on DJar knew. That she had only twenty years left to live. “That may seem a long time when you’re still young, but to me it’s very short.”
Brita told them she would rather know that she had another twenty years than to not know if she’d live tomorrow.
Anni insisted she wo
uld never go. She’d be scared of something going wrong. She had friends here and wanted to get a job and a family, not to die on a spacekabin or on a deserted planet.
Hani kept her eyes on Daili when she spoke. “I want to go to Kun DJar because nobody on DJar understands me and because I want to be a ponderer. My teachers hate me because I’m more clever than they are and I don’t want to wait for news from the stars and planets. I want to see for myself.”
It was a lot to say for someone who had hardly spoken all freedays. She had used the p-word, to Laytji’s delight, no doubt to shock them. Brita was frowning. Daili couldn’t tell if it was the word, the bragging, or hurt from Hani saying that nobody understood her.
Laytji had been hopping up and down waiting her turn. “I want to go because I want to see what Kun DJar is like and I’ll never have to go to Learners again.”
“That’s stupid and childish,” Anni replied.
“No comments please,” Daili told her, maybe a little more harshly than she’d meant. She tried to soften it. “Look love, we’re trying to be mature here, remember?”
“Yes and this way we’ll never get anywhere.”
Daili bit her lips to keep from saying something that might send her daughter running out again, but Brita stepped in once more. “Anni, listen, I don’t understand their reasons either, because I’m a different person, but I still respect what they say. We need to listen to each other. It’s the first step in solving difficult problems.”
Anni blushed at being put in her place so gently by Brita. It was never going to be easy, but at least they were talking. What was becoming more and more clear to Daili was that her own hopes of Anni changing her mind were futile. She sighed quietly. “So where do we go from here? Since we’re already on DJar, like it or not, do we stay because it’s better than splitting up our families? Or would we go for a more political option, a majority vote?”
“Either way people will feel hurt,” Brita said.
In the silence Daili wondered what they were all thinking. Hani would lose out in a majority vote, as would Anni; both were capable of major emotional outbursts that could disrupt family life. She caught Brita’s smile. There was an understanding between them. These were decisions that would affect everybody. Did she and Brita have the right to make a decision that big for their children? Would a child of nine or fourteen years old be able to make such a choice and understand the consequences? Anni, stubborn and always with her opinion ready, yet so vulnerable still, and Laytji? Was it a good enough reason to uproot her whole family because of Daili’s own happiness? Could she not still be happy here?
“Well, I just want to say that since I’m almost independent I should make my own decisions and you don’t have to stay for me. I just wish this journey didn’t exist at all,” Anni said.
“You’re still four years away from being independent,” Daili replied.
“Four years isn’t long. I could stay with somebody else for that time. It’s better than going.”
“It’s not where you could stay that worries me, Anni. It is the actual separation, the saying goodbye forever. A family is a family. The roots can’t be broken or the plant will die.”
Nobody knew what to say after that. Eventually they had another drink and decided it was best to think about it again. The final crew list wouldn’t be official until the end of Station Four. There was still time.
Greguia
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“Still so alive, you have to go.
I had it good, you let me know.
Still so alive, nothing to say.
It is goodbye, then gone, away.
“Already dead, I let you go.
He killed my spirit long ago.
Already dead, I have to stay.
To live my lonely life each day.
“Like a mother you were near.
To guide and love and dry a tear.
As my mother, I love you still.
Just know that I always will.”
Kaspi stopped reading. With her hand she moved her still-sandy-coloured hair back into place, her wrist stopping at her cheek for a moment.
“I didn’t mean for it to sound so sentimental. It looked all right when I wrote it last night,” Jema apologized. She’d never meant to give it this early nor for Kaspi to read it out loud. “I’ll write a better one.”
Kaspi kissed her head. “No, this is what you felt last night. That’s okay. I do that too sometimes, you know. I feel hopelessly sad one day, thinking it’s all over and then later I remember I still have three stations left.”
Jema pulled a new pack of wine out of the cupboard and opened one of the pouches inside. Three stations was so little time. “I guess I was just upset last night.”
“Of course you were,” Kaspi replied. Jema had just told her about Klara’s transfer to one of the adult wards. Nobody had been forewarned. She’d just been gone. The only things left were the dresses Klara’s mom had given Nori.
Jema had not been the only one upset. The entire team was shocked. Klara was no adult. She never would be and she was never any trouble, but their arguments had been ignored yesterday at the staff meeting, like they always were. The carers were allowed to sit in but the discussions were always between the young psychiatrist who ran the ward and the professor who arranged these transfers and only attended these meetings once a moon. The seniors never bothered themselves with the hopeless cases other than to move them when they were short of places. When none of her colleagues had pointed that out to him, Jema had. That had been a stupid move, since no matter what she’d said he’d just thrown his licence around. “Which one of us has actually studied these afflictions?”
He had, of course, in the prints. The children never saw more of him than when he was reading reports in the office. She’d told him that too, before walking out.
This morning there’d been a message from the director: A standard note warning her it would be in her own best interest not to disrespect authority. “Even if that authority lacks the brain cells and the heart to merit his existence,” she said to Kaspi.
“Will this affect your appointment tomorrow?” Kaspi asked.
Jema didn’t know. The appointment she had with the director had nothing to do with the note but everything with Jema’s future. Two moons after the application for the journey a reply had arrived from the city. She was to come for an interview and bring a great amount of documents. These would have to be in print, not on partikels. She would need statements of behaviour as well as the standard medical and genetic records that accompanied every move a person made on this planet. They also wanted statements of work experience, recommendations and a letter from her two closest relatives giving their permission.
“Permission!” Jema had sneered. Kityag would hit the roof. Besides, there was no way she’d ask his permission.
To top it all off they wanted a letter from her director to prove she was a reliable worker. That was why she’d made the appointment. Now she may have blown that part.
At first all these requirements had seemed like a mountain too high to climb, but Kaspi wasn’t so easily put off. “That’s makers talking. Don’t worry about it.”
She had accompanied Jema to the registration offices and within a moon all formalities had been taken care of. That left the relatives, the director and the points needed to get to the city and back. Jema wouldn’t get paid until after the interview.
“Don’t worry about the points. I’ll transfer some from my account,” Kaspi said.
“No, you need them to visit Lusji. I’ll ask at work.” Kaspi always looked forward to the visits to her daughter and grandchildren who lived way up in Northland; Jema wouldn’t take that from her.
“By Bue, Jema, I have plenty of points left to spare. I went back to work after the kids were big to save for this retirement year, only now it seems so useless to spend them on visiting places I won’t have time to remember. I was going to divide them up between the three of you anyway.”
Those words were worth more than all the points on DJar put together. Jema leaned over the back of Kaspi’s chair to give her a hug. Kaspi gently pushed her away. “Have you talked to Kityag yet?” she asked.
Jema had pondered over that permission letter. She’d considered making up her own and signing his name, but the risk was too big. Nor could she just confront him; he’d called the people wanting to go losers.
“Just explain why you do,” Kaspi said.
“I will not beg, Kaspi. Never!”
“Do you want me to talk to him?”
But that would be even more embarrassing. “No, I guess the only way is to be honest. Not to Kityag, but to whoever is there in the city and hope it’s not a maker.”
Kaspi didn’t disagree.
The appointment with the director was right after lunch the next day. “Have you tadpoles in your stomach too?” Kamaron asked when she didn’t eat. She answered no; she just had nerves.
While rehearsing what she intended to say on the way over, Jema only just avoided walking into the door that one of the senior doctors, directly in front of her, left to swing closed behind him when entering the main building. Bastard! He’d known she was there.
She sped up to pass him in the long corridor before the second set of doors and then let those carelessly bang closed behind her. Who did he think he was, anyway?
He entered the elevator behind her. “Number three,” he said after Jema had pressed the button for the top floor.
She looked at the ceiling. She was no servant of his.
“Could you please press number three for me? My hands are full!”
She did as he requested. He got out on the third floor without looking back at her.
The whole thing was a lot easier than she’d expected. The director understood and promised to have a letter of recommendation in print ready by the end of the next day. She would be sorry to see Jema go, but if this was the way she wanted it. The warning note was never mentioned.