Culture Shock

by Christopher Nuttall

  Hannah shrugged. John wondered, darkly, if she was teasing him. He hadn't met Beth, save for a couple of closely-chaperoned ceremonies. She was pretty, he supposed, and she came from a good family, but he knew almost nothing about her. Who knew what married life with her would be like? Joel was unusual in being so close to Hannah before they were formally married.

  And even he doesn't spend time with her alone, John thought. He can’t.

  They joined the long line of people - men on the outside, women on the inside - and made their way slowly down to the gates. Dozens of policemen stood outside, watching warily as the Forsakers walked past. Behind them, there were hundreds of people, some carrying banners that welcomed the refugees and others that told them to go back where they came from. John winced as the crowd started to shout, despite the police presence. It looked as though the two groups of protesters were on the verge of going to war with one another, with the police and the refugees caught in the middle.

  He forced himself to walk onwards, catching sight of Beth and her younger sister ahead of them. She would be a good wife, he was sure. He hadn't heard anything bad about her, not like Hannah - or another girl he'd known, who’d chosen to leave the commune long before they’d been thrown off Tarsus. She’d been caught in a compromising position, John recalled; she’d left, rather than accept punishment for her sins. What had happened to her? John knew he’d never know.

  And Konrad will not speak for me until Joel is married, he thought. He felt a stab of hatred so intense that it surprised him. By then, Beth will be married too.

  The shouts grew louder, the policemen running backwards and forwards to keep the crowd in line. John felt his heartbeat starting to pound, again, as the mass of refugees reached the motorway and turned west. Someone had helpfully marked out the route, he noted. They’d also added signs pointing to the first cottage, now surrounded by men and women in traditional dress. He stared, unable to believe his eyes. It was something out of a dream - or a nightmare. The men and women might be dressed traditionally, but they were standing far too close together.

  “The Forsakers here have forsaken us,” Hannah whispered, her lips very close to his ear. “I don’t think they’re real Forsakers.”

  John shrugged. Joel and his ilk might rant and rave about who qualified as a Forsaker and who didn't, but he found it hard to care. There were no strict rules, only guidelines covering everything from dress code to acceptable levels of technology. He’d even heard that, back on their original homeworld, there had been dozens of different communes, all with different ideas. Young men and women had moved between them until they found one that suited them.

  But that won’t happen here, he thought, morbidly. Joel and his friends will see to that, won’t they?

  Another group of protesters - two groups of protesters - were waiting for them by the estate, shouting and screaming at one another as the refugees approached. There was something primal in the air, a sense of burning anger mixed with resentment ... one group wanted to welcome the refugees, the other wanted to throw them out - or worse. John shuddered, hoping desperately that the second group didn't win the debate. He honestly didn't know if the commune could survive being evicted a second time. Going back to space ... the thought was horrific.

  Hannah touched his hand. “She” - Judith, John realised - “told me that her partner was a Forsaker, descended from Forsakers,” she said. “And they were fighting over welcoming us.”

  John shrugged. He didn't care what Judith’s boyfriend thought. If he was willing to engage in a relationship outside marriage, he was no Forsaker. And Judith ... he’d been brought up to believe that girls who surrendered themselves too quickly were sluts, but she wasn't slutty ... not really. She was a decent person, even if she did wear skimpy clothes.

  “He should be with her,” he muttered, as they passed through the gates. “Or her brother ...”

  Hannah elbowed him. “Interested?”

  John shook his head, quickly. Judith was likable, he had to admit. She had a way of presenting herself that somehow undermined all the horror stories he’d heard about Outsider girls. But she wouldn't make a comfortable wife. He wanted someone traditional, someone who would embrace the role of a wife and mother. Hell, he didn't think Hannah would make a comfortable wife for Joel. But Joel ...

  He looked up at his sister, feeling bitter helplessness. Joel wouldn't take defiance lightly, not from his wife. He’d force her to submit to him, whatever it took ...

  ... And John, charged to defend her, knew he couldn't protect her from her future husband.

  ***

  “Hey,” Mike shouted, pushing as much authority as he could into his voice. “Stop that!”

  The two youths, on the verge of throwing stones into the mass of refugees, turned and ran into the welcoming arms of their fellow protesters. Mike gritted his teeth in frustration, knowing that arresting the entire group would be impossible. Hundreds of protesters had turned up, some welcoming the Forsaker refugees and others demanding they be sent back to Tarsus. The police were badly outnumbered.

  He turned away, cursing under his breath. The noise was deafening - shouts, screams, chants - and there was nothing he could do. There were only two hundred policemen on duty, only a handful of them carrying anything more intimidating than their truncheons. He had a nasty feeling, judging by what the police had already seized, that the protesters were armed with everything from baseball bats to pistols and hunting rifles. The gunshop nearest his home had been restocked with guns and ammunition, only to be cleared out by the end of the day. Everyone was arming themselves.

  And this mess is partly your fault, he told himself. He’d dropped the portable com in the trash compactor, once he’d used it, but he was still surprised he hadn't been caught. You told them about Bobbie.

  He felt a sinking sensation in his heart as he took in a new line of protesters, denouncing the refugees as rapists and demanding their immediate removal. Beyond them, other protesters loudly announced their willingness to do what the police would not - or could not. Others demanded that the police be armed, or that the estate be broken up, or that the refugees be scattered over the planet in chain gangs. And they denounced their opponents as traitors ...

  “A right fucking mess,” Constable Harris said. He looked as grim as Mike felt. There just weren't enough policemen to do more than protect themselves if the two groups of protesters went to war. “An absolute fucking mess.”

  Mike nodded, turning to gaze at the other group of protesters. Many of them were descended from Forsakers, intent on welcoming their cousins. Others ... he recognised some of them from previous busts, students who seemed to delight in drinking themselves senseless and then starting fights. The cynical side of him wondered how many of them were dating the protest leaders. He’d done plenty of stupid things back when he’d been a young man trying to impress a pretty girl.

  His eyes opened wide as he caught sight of one very well-endowed woman. She wore a traditional Forsaker dress, but she’d cut it open, allowing her breasts to spill out. The display was so blatant that Mike found himself torn between the desire to stare and a flare of genuine disgust. And pity too, perhaps. He doubted the girl would be very popular amongst real Forsakers.

  Or yes, she will be popular, his own thoughts mocked him. The gender imbalance amongst the Forsakers had been discussed endlessly in the police station. Everyone agreed it portended trouble. Just not in the right way.

  The first wave of marching refugees came to an end, the police swinging the spaceport doors shut with an audible sense of relief. Mike watched them go, the protesters quieting as the Forsakers vanished into the distance. Some turned to follow, despite police warnings; others, less inclined to walk all the way to the estate, were already heading back to the bus stop. It made him roll his eyes. Walking back to Lothian wouldn't take that long.

  His radio crackled. “The next group of refugees will be out in two hours,” Captain Stewart said. “Sergeant Hamlin, I w
ant you and your squad to move the prisoners back to the station.”

  “Aye, sir,” Hamlin said.

  “Everyone else, report back to the guardhouse,” Stewart added. “We all need tea, I think.”

  Mike nodded. The protesters were definitely leaving, as if they hadn’t realised a second group of refugees was going to be moved. He silently thanked God for small mercies as he surveyed the mess they’d left behind; empty bottles, countless placards, flyers either advertising the benefits or decrying the costs of mass immigration. They’d have to get a chain gang or two up to the spaceport, he thought. Picking up the litter alone was going to take weeks.

  He stumbled over a banner and glared down at it. Someone had drawn a cartoon - a naked woman being chased by a gang of over-muscled men - and waved it in the air. He would have been darkly amused if the woman hadn't been wearing a police badge, pinned to her right breast. It didn't look anything like Bobbie, he noted, but it was still going to tar her reputation. And if he hadn't blown the whistle, he told himself, no one would have known about her ordeal.

  “Mike,” Captain Stewart said, when he reached the guardhouse. “Get yourself a cuppa, then sit down.”

  Mike nodded. Stewart didn't know he’d leaked information to the datanet. Whoever had gotten to him, they couldn't have kept him from tearing Mike a new asshole if he’d known the truth. But it didn’t take a genius to narrow down the list of potential suspects to a manageable number. The only people who knew the story and had a decent motive to tell it were Bobbie’s comrades.

  Former comrades, Mike thought, grimly. She will never return to us.

  He poured himself a cup of tea and sat down, suddenly feeling very tired. Several familiar faces were missing, either through resignation or outright desertion. A message had come down from HQ last night, stating that no further resignations were being accepted for the duration. For the duration of what, Mike had wondered. Arthur’s Seat would never be the same again. He had to admit, if only in the privacy of his own mind, that he’d seriously considered deserting too. If he hadn't had a wife ...

  I could go out to the country, he thought. And as long as I worked hard, no one would give a damn about where I came from.

  He sighed. Life had been so much easier before the refugees had arrived.

  ***

  Judith was mildly surprised she hadn't been arrested, the moment she’d turned up at the spaceport. She had, after all, decided to rebroadcast an email she’d received about a female police officer being assaulted - and nearly raped - during the riot in Lothian. And how the refugees had rescued some of their own who’d been arrested by the police. The news had spread rapidly, fuelling the protest movements for and against the refugees. Judith had half-expected to be marched straight to prison.

  But instead, she’d merely been given overalls and told to get to work.

  The director chose a more subtle revenge, she thought, as they marched into the spaceport complex. She put me on litter duty.

  “Pick up the rubbish,” the supervisor ordered. “Put anything that can be recycled in one set of bags, everything else in the other.”

  Judith gritted her teeth as they went to work. The refugees might have been reluctant, once upon a time, to go into the spaceport itself, but their reluctance had faded as more and more refugees arrived. There were piles of litter everywhere, ranging from ration packaging to damaged clothes and destroyed books. Someone had clearly ransacked the spaceport library, removing a number of books and shredding them. It was petty and pointless and she knew the people responsible would never be caught ...

  Putting the thought aside, she and her team worked their way through the spaceport, picking up hundreds of pieces of litter. Some of the rooms smelt dreadful, so dreadful that she suspected the refugees had been taking shits on the floor. There was no way they could be cleaned without gas masks. The toilets were, if anything, in a worse condition. Both male and female toilets were utterly ghastly, as if the Forsakers hadn't known how to go to the toilet. She didn't want to know what they’d been doing.

  “We’re going to need medical treatment when we emerge,” David said. He was a year older than her, the fourth son of a farmer. She would have been interested in him, she had to admit, if she hadn’t been more interested in girls. “And probably disinfectant.”

  Judith nodded as she scooped up a bunch of clothes and dumped them in the bin. They’d need to have at least three showers and a bath before any of them felt clean again, after spending so long in the spaceport. She’d been in pigpens that were cleaner, even though pigs were disgusting animals. Her father had told her that cleaning out the pigpen built character, but all it had really done was convince her that she didn't want pigs of her own.

  “We’re going to have to scrub ourselves clean,” she agreed. The spaceport showers were clogged and useless, so badly jammed up that she suspected the refugees had used them as makeshift toilets. She had a feeling that plumbers would have to be called to unblock the pipes. Perhaps they could just designate the spaceport a new waste disposal centre and save time. “Do you think they thought to bring portable showers?”

  “Probably not,” David said.

  Judith sighed. She didn't understand it. The Forsakers might prefer to avoid modern technology, but they weren't barbarians. Hannah wasn't a barbarian. And yet, the evidence around her suggested that the refugees no longer cared. They’d fouled their own nest so badly that disease would spread rapidly.

  She felt a sudden surge of anger as she picked up a set of bloodstained garments. The bastards didn't even let their daughters use contraceptive implants! Judith had gone to the doctor, the day she bled for the first time, and been given an implant. She hadn't bled since, not once. But Hannah and her sisters would have bled regularly ... she clenched her fist in rage, dumping the garments in the bin. Their parents preferred to allow their children to suffer rather than use medicine to save themselves some discomfort ...

  Bastards, she thought. Gayle had an implant too. They don’t even let them know the possibilities.

  That would change, she was sure. The newcomers would learn the potentials of modern technology, even as they learned how hard it was to survive without it. And then ... who knew what would happen? Hannah was already sneaking out of the commune, whenever she could get away with it. If rumour was to be believed, she wasn't the only one.

  Judith smiled at the thought, then turned back to her work. There were more refugees in orbit, but everyone seemed to agree the flow was finally coming to an end. And then ... there would be some breathing space, unless more arrived. The Forsakers hadn't been making themselves very popular ...

  And I can see why, she thought, grimly. Hannah was nice - she’d make an exception for Hannah - yet too many of her fellows were monsters. They want to live here, but they’re not prepared to do what they need to do to fit in.

  Chapter Thirty

  Therefore, the settlers, as far as the Grand Senate was concerned, were always in the wrong. A conflict between old and new, between long-standing settlers and corporations, could be framed as a dispute between the righteous and the evil. And they were convinced that they were on the side of right.

  - Professor Leo Caesius. Ethnic Streaming and the End of Empire.

  “Put them all in the warehouse,” Joel directed, as the cargo handlers went to work. “We’ll sort them all ourselves.”

  He allowed himself a cold smile. It had taken four days to prepare the shuttlepad - the men clearing away the foliage, the women dusting the warehouses - but it had been done, just in time to keep the Imperial Navy from becoming impatient. They’d started to land cargo shuttles in the estate almost as soon as Joel had given the word, moving countless crates into the warehouses without giving the local authorities time to inspect them. It had been nerve-wracking - Joel simply didn't have enough money to bribe the spacers - but it had worked.

  And if they’d insisted on inspecting all the crates, he thought, they would have found the guns.


  The cargo handlers moved with remarkable speed. They were using technology to make their job easier, Joel noted. He would have preferred to keep the rest of his people away, just to make sure they didn’t pick up any bad ideas, but it couldn’t be helped. There was simply too much demand for the supplies in the crates. God alone knew what the Elders would say - or do - if they found out about the weapons. Their willingness to surrender was disheartening.

  “That’s the task complete,” the Imperial Navy officer said, finally. He held out a shiny datapad. “Sign here.”

  Joel signed, then watched as the officer and his crew piled back into the shuttles. He hadn't wanted them around any longer than strictly necessary, but it was still a relief to see them go without problems. Too many things could have gone wrong - could still go wrong. He turned on his heel, as soon as the last of the shuttles had taken off, and strode into the warehouse. The cavernous space was crammed with crates.

  And yet, this is tiny, Joel thought. He couldn't help wondering just how much had been stolen back on Tarsus, or somewhere in the interstellar void. We should have a great many more supplies.