Guided by Starlight

by Matt Levin

  The conference table was just the outline of a rectangle, a large hole in the center. There were no plants or windows in the room, just grey slab on all sides. Tanner was pretty sure even the table’s wood was fake.

  “Well,” the boss said, and Tanner watched his colleagues lean forward almost imperceptibly as their manager spoke. It would have been easy to miss, except for someone who had trained himself to look for these little social cues of submission. Tanner stayed rooted in place.

  “I may have gotten a lead that could really turn things around for us,” the boss continued.

  Tanner wondered what could possibly be that significant. He had first joined the company eight years ago, back in the halcyon days of frontier settlement efforts. And then the war with the Horde dried everything up. The Calimor colonists abandoned the planet, Bitanu downsized until it was just a single scientific research base, and Ikkren’s growth flatlined.

  The past six years had seen receding profits, round after round of layoffs, and corporate restructuring: the kind of maddeningly cheery phrase the company heads used to mean relocating the staff to this particular shithole of an office. Maybe some of the newer employees might get wide-eyed about the manager’s pronouncement of good news. Tanner had lived through years of the same empty promises.

  “I’ve been in contact with a gentleman named Alexander Mettevin,” the manager continued. “Does anyone know who that is?”

  No one did. More stupid games, Tanner thought. Just get to the point.

  “He’s the chief financial official of the refugee population,” the boss explained.

  Tanner had no idea the newars were already that far along in setting up colonies. The last he had heard, they were still bogged down on Calimor. If they were already looking at contracting with Veltech, that meant they were proceeding more rapidly than he had realized. He felt his chest tighten almost immediately.

  “The thing is, the refugees are in a bad spot,” the boss continued. “Their only choice for settlement is the planet Calimor, and it looks like they’re using the old colonial infrastructure abandoned years ago. They’re in desperate need of updated machinery, technology, and supplies. Plus, they’re now apparently looking at more settlements beyond Calimor. That’s where we come in.

  “I’m still hashing out the details, but we’re looking at an exclusive contract with the refugees,” the manager continued. “Essentially, we provide heavily discounted goods to their settlements, while they promise not to shop around at any of the other colonial supply corps.

  “Which means we can gradually increase our prices over the next few years. These folks are so desperate they’ll take any contract that’s good for them in the short term. As long as we can accept a few years of losses, the profits will stream in once they get on their feet and we charge them our normal prices,” he said.

  That was when the spasms in Tanner’s arms intensified.

  “This could be a huge deal,” someone at the other end of the table spoke up. “We have lots of supplies stocked up at our warehouses. I’d guess we could load up a commercial ship with our products almost as soon as you finalize the details on the contract.”

  “I can start drawing up a pricing plan ASAP,” another coworker said, this one from the marketing analysis team.

  “This ought to get us some excellent publicity in the media,” a third individual chimed in. Tanner thought she was in public relations. “There’s been a lot of increase in public sympathy for the refugees ever since the settlement referenda failed. We might actually be out in front of public opinion on this if we can spin it that we’re offering the refugees discounts out of genuine sympathy.”

  The spasms spread upward into Tanner’s shoulders.

  “I think we’re forgetting about the referenda,” he blurted out. All eyes turned to him. He enjoyed having that kind of effect. None of his other coworkers had drawn the full attention of the others. “We shouldn’t be doing business with the newars. And they have no right to be anywhere in the system.” A hefty silence followed.

  “But...the settlement referenda were only for Union worlds,” one of his coworkers finally managed. “Their colonization efforts on Calimor or elsewhere in the outer rim are perfectly legal.”

  “It’s about the spirit of the referenda,” Tanner said. “It shouldn’t matter what the actual wording meant. The implication was that the newars don’t belong. Natonus should only be for the Natonese.”

  The manager looked back and forth between his various employees. He had lost control of his own meeting, and he knew it. Tanner felt a cold thrill rush through him. It felt good to finally be heard.

  “The referenda were bullshit,” one of the women near the door said. “Turnout was a joke. There were all kinds of organizations trying to make sure they didn’t pass. The refugees are people, just like us. And they deserve better.”

  “Look,” another coworker said, “I see where you’re coming from. I voted against the settlement charters. But that was then. Now, we’re talking about business.”

  Tanner felt the anger writhing through his body, constricting around his muscles and joints. He slammed his hand on the table in a cathartic release of emotion that calmed the raging storm inside him. A handful of his colleagues jumped. His boss’ eyes narrowed.

  “These newars don’t need our help and they don’t deserve our sympathy,” he said, his voice rising. “They’re violating the spirit of our laws and threatening our social fabric. Fuck those animals.”

  He hadn’t planned any of this. The words just tumbled out of his mouth, but they were easy enough to repeat. It was the same thing all the Offspring videos said. The same thing Onyx had been emphasizing during their talks.

  “And if this company does business with them, we deserve to go under. Fuck anyone who thinks different.”

  The silence stretched out for nearly ten seconds. Tanner thought he could hear the woman near the door mutter “piece of shit,” but other than that, it was deathly silent.

  Finally, the boss spoke, using the calm voice he only reserved for his highest fits of anger. “Tanner Keltin, I would like to speak with you out in the hallway.”

  “Good,” he said, pushing himself away from the table. He knew what the boss would say. “Fuck all of you. And fuck the newars.” Following the boss out, Tanner slammed the door to the conference room, half-surprised he didn’t shatter the glass.

  Once the door was closed and they were out of earshot, the boss stared at him with barely concealed contempt. “You are clearly in a bad place. This is your first disciplinary action at Veltech, so—”

  “—fire me, coward,” Tanner interjected. “Be a fucking man and do it.”

  The boss sighed. “I don’t want to, but you’re not giving me a choice.”

  “Stop being weak and do it!” Tanner shouted, broadening his chest and towering over his boss.

  “Fine! Pack your damn things!” the boss finally snapped. “Get out!”

  Tanner snorted and let out a smug grin as he headed back to his office.

  . . .

  When Tanner finally came down from the high he had felt on the airbus ride to his studio—where he had breathlessly sent a message to Onyx explaining everything that had happened—a sudden fit of despair gripped him.

  Veltech technically owned the apartment where he and Rebecca lived. He figured the bureaucratic nature of the company probably meant it’d take a while for the housing office to serve them an eviction notice. But it’d be coming, sooner or later.

  All of their savings were tied up in Rebecca’s college fund. And even though the company was technically obligated to provide him three months’ severance, thanks to Favan Administration regulations, he needed to find a steady source of income. One that could cover new housing, provide for their daily needs, and still add to Rebecca’s college fund.

  The government’s monthly stipends could probably keep them off the streets and fed, sure. But it’d still mean dipping into his sister’s univ
ersity fund. And Tanner refused to do that.

  “I’m a fucking idiot,” he murmured, plopping down on his couch, folding his arms over his knees, and crashing his forehead on top.

  It had felt so good at the time. He hadn’t gone into the meeting planning to make a scene, but he had embraced the opportunity. Anger and elation had gone hand-in-hand, like a powerful concoction of drugs.

  But now he would pay for it, quite literally. He refused to let Rebecca have to pay for it too. Whatever job he could find, he’d take it, he resolved. That was when his wrist terminal chirped, interrupting his thoughts.

  It was a message of condolences from Onyx, although he also emphasized how proud he was of Tanner for standing up for the Offspring, their ideals, and, by extension, the Natonese people.

  And then there was an attachment. In the hour since Tanner had told Onyx what had happened, he had solicited donations from other Offspring members to help Tanner and his sister get back on their feet. His eyes bulged when he realized the sum was thousands of natons. Enough to get him through the year and probably halfway through the next, along with severance.

  He had been through so much: fits of rage, elation, despair, and now cold relief. Or maybe searing gratitude. But it was more than that. He had refused to cry when his parents had died, or when he put his entire life on hold to make sure Rebecca’s future was still secure.

  Somewhere inside, the floodgates of his psyche broke. And Tanner wept.

  CHAPTER 24

  * * *

  “Of course I’ll provide the food your settlement needs,” Tori Hyrak had assured Nadia at the conclusion of their first meeting. “But I need you to understand why. And how you can help us in return.”

  So she brought her to another settlement, this one halfway between New Modrin and the fertile, wetter lands further south. The settlement, named Ubhasa, was located in the middle of a vast ice plain, with only a few small cliffs interrupting the flat landscape. Nadia could find no discernible reason why the outpost should exist.

  She stood on an ice shelf overlooking the outpost alongside the Horde allchief. Tori wore a deep green enviro-suit and seemed well-adjusted to the biting cold of her planet. Nadia envied her. Even beneath the insulated, warming layers of her own suit, she still hadn’t adapted to the planet’s freeze in the week they had been planetside.

  Tori had been hospitable, if not particularly warm, toward Nadia and Boyd. But Nadia thought having their conversation outdoors was Tori’s way of maintaining their power dynamic. And it was working, Nadia thought with a shiver.

  Ubhasa was built through a mixture of wood, plastics, and metals. It looked like a monstrosity, with new wards or districts added on haphazardly. The outpost was ultra-dense, with the entire settlement viewable from their vantage point.

  Nadia looked to her left, out over an expanse of tundra. The Exemplar sat on top of a large patch of stable, flat permafrost. Boyd was somewhere inside, performing maintenance checks after their flight from Calimor.

  A rover appeared at the edge of her view. The faint crunch of snow and mud beneath its tire treads carried on the wind. Nadia realized that the settlement must be some kind of trading outpost. Without the inner planets’ level of infrastructure, Ikkren’s planetary trade relied on ground vehicles. And the settlements were far enough apart that it made sense to have relay outposts in the middle.

  “This settlement didn’t even exist until the beginning of the previous decade,” Tori said. “It is a testament to our growth. Or a symbol of our decay.”

  Nadia turned to her. “I read the primers the Union provided on your people. But I get the feeling that the Union might not have the most objective view.”

  Tori made a face. “Hardly. Let me guess: they said that we are a superstitious people who hate outsiders, who only united in the face of Union encroachment, who launched a suicidal war to prevent the very same development that was bringing us out of the dark ages?” Her voice rose in pitch with each successive detail.

  Nadia grinned. “Something like that. But that’s why I’m here: I want to hear your side.”

  Tori crossed her arms over her chest and looked out over the ice plains. “The primers are both right and wrong.”

  Nadia looked out too, appreciating the rover’s tracks as it inched closer to Ubhasa.

  “The story of our people starts at the beginning of the colonial era in the 2310s. Right when the first ships landed,” Tori said. “Our ancestors left Earth based on inflated promises of a resource-rich solar system on the other side of the galaxy. And our system is rich, of course...but that didn’t mean our first wave of colonists had it easy. Setting up a colony was hard work, and the development corporations had lied about the efficacy of the machines they sent with us.

  “So there was lots of crime. Alcoholism, drunken street fights, petty thefts. But because the early colonists were also in a precarious situation, they didn’t believe in thinning out their numbers through executions. So the worst of the worst were exiled. The first farmers in the entire Natonus System were bloodthirsty criminals.”

  The primers had only glossed over the first few decades of Natonese history. Back then, the Union hadn’t even existed, and Obrigan City was just a mass of shelters and small meeting houses.

  Nadia had no idea about the story of the exiles. A silver lining of the severe resource calculus her own people faced was that it kept their population only at the level of absolute necessity. The original Natonese settlers would’ve had to defrost millions of settlers at once in order to break down their colony vessels into prefab shelters. A recipe for chaos.

  Nadia was grateful that everyone understood the stakes. The hundreds they had brought out of cryo for the Calimor settlement were all on the same page and willing to work. All of Isadora’s other advisers—even Russ, Nadia admitted grudgingly—were professionals. Maybe they had some strange stroke of good fortune that had been denied to the original settlers.

  “The exiles became more and more disenchanted over the coming decades,” Tori continued. “We saw war, rebellion, religious upheaval. And when space travel became affordable to those outside the elite, toward the end of the last century, we got the hell out of dodge. I was a teenager when my people fled to Ikkren.”

  “But then the Union caught up to you again,” Nadia said.

  Tori flashed a bitter smile. “Eventually. But first, we fought among ourselves. Settlements that couldn’t produce enough food raided the others. Our first decade planetside was filled with hunger and blood. Little else.”

  It sounded bleak. Maybe even bleaker than the story of her ancestors’ exile. But Nadia detected an element of pride in the woman’s voice. Not that she was proud of her predecessors’ actions, necessarily, but of the fact that her people had weathered so many storms and still come through.

  “That was why we needed the Horde,” Tori continued. “To unite our people, and to strike fear into the hearts of the interlopers. The imperialists. The Union, and the developers who control it through their purse strings. But the Horde was only ever supposed to represent the threat of violence. The older generation—the ones who were adults when we arrived—couldn’t see that. So they started a war with the Union that we couldn’t win.”

  The primers had gone into the details of the war explicitly, emphasizing that the war began, unequivocally, because of Horde aggression. That was where Nadia had first learned of Tori’s story. “The primers said that you were the one who ended the conflict,” she said.

  “By killing my predecessor,” Tori said. “Because the strongest have the right to rule. And no one’s challenged me since.”

  A silence settled on the pair, and the only thing Nadia could hear was the raging wind. The truck arrived at the gates of Ubhasa, where a dozen settlers emerged from behind the settlement walls and began unloading the vehicle’s rear hold. Nadia guessed the packages contained the same fare she and her crew had lived on for the past week: some mixture of wheat, onions, carrots, and turnip
s. Local researchers had discovered that the planet’s endemic bacteria dramatically lowered the soil’s freezing temperature, Nadia had learned. That meant the vast majority of settlements could produce food year-round.

  A figure departed the settlement, skirting the edge of the vehicle. Nadia realized that it was Derek, who was heading for the Exemplar.

  “It was good of you to take Derek as part of your crew,” Tori said. “Few would trust someone from Ikkren. But Derek represents why our way of life is no longer sustainable. I am responsible for three distinct generations of people: the first, who emigrated here as adults, who lived here for a decade under subsistence conditions, and who still hate everything about the inner planets.

  “The second are those who came here as teenagers. Like me. We saw the futility of the old generation’s hatred for the Union, but we don’t trust them either. We feel the Horde is the only way to guarantee our survival.

  “And people like Derek represent the third: those who came as newborns who have no memory of the inner planets. They hardly even remember a time before the Union’s outer rim development initiatives. Before money replaced the old barter system. They don’t remember the days of starvation and violence. And the war with the Union is an abstraction for them.”

  Nadia recalled the story Derek had told her and Boyd about his time on Ikkren as a teenager. How he had signed up for university, hoping it would be his ticket off-world, only to have his admission rescinded when a round of budget cuts meant the university had to downsize.

  It was harder to understand Derek’s story when it had just been words. But seeing Ikkren firsthand—with its mix of promise and hardship, of breakneck growth and stagnation—made it was easier to appreciate the depth of hopelessness that had brought Derek to Calimor. The kind that made an intellectual young man sign up for a raiding party as the only way to get off his home planet.