Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (92 page)

He
wasn't a member of the council of course; he was an outsider without voting
powers. The Fu's and their peace-nicks had emphasized that as soon as the
station’s situation had finally stabilized and the council had formally
reconvened.

Of
course the tribes were seeing some of that as well. They weren't happy about
the situation and who could really blame them? They were being treated like
children. The more they expressed their resentment and complained or acted out
the more the peace-nicks pointed to that behavior as the reasons for why they
were treated as they were. It was a classic catch twenty two situation.

Eventually
the people from Kiev were going to twig to the fact that they had no
representation in the running of the station either. When that happened things
would really get interesting, the admiral thought with a half smile. Definitely
interesting and possibly ugly if the council handled things as they were
currently handling them... which meant poorly.

Sprite
talked to Irons through the HUD as he left the council room. “I honestly don't
think this is going to work out,” she said. Her internal projections were
nearly even, she projected that half of the tribes would assimilate into the
station. The other half would either become so resentful they would act out and
be marginalized or they would leave. Hopefully they would leave.

The
admiral shrugged. He was fairly certain that he was being monitored so tried to
keep his side of the conversation light. “It's a work in progress I admit. I
didn't expect everything to be perfect right out of the gate Sprite. Good
things take time, patience, and hard work to get them on track and keep them on
track.”

“I
still don't see it happening.”

He
paused in the ante room near the empty secretary's desk. He sighed after a
moment. “It won’t for some. Some are too wild, too set in their ways. I imagine
that some of the tribe will go to the planet eventually. They may be happier
there. Some will cling to their identity out of a need for stability. Others
will throw themselves into the system and will become depressed at how far
behind they are or will assimilate completely.”

“How
do you know this?” Sid Berkheart asked, interrupting the admiral. Irons looked
up as Berkheart appeared before him. The emitters the human resource manager
was using were out of alignment. There was a line and some fuzz in his center
torso. “Sorry, eavesdropping I know.” He held up his hands to indicate he
didn't mean to offend. His image flickered a bit.

Sprite
shot Irons a knowing look but he ignored it for now. He shrugged, cleared his
throat and then responded. “Not a problem Mister Berkheart. To answer your
question, psychology, training, and experience. From history I'll point out to
you the native Americans. From personal experience I'll point to what I've seen
in Pyrax.”

Sid
blinked. “Oh.”

Irons
rubbed his chin. “The tricky bit is to give the tribal leaders enough authority
to allay their fears of being marginalized and their resentment over being
supplanted by the council. Perhaps in time one or another can even join the
council?”

Sid
blinked at him a few times and then whistled softly. “Fu wouldn't like that.
It's possible though.” He was fairly certain that Fu would actively oppose such
a proposal. After all the tribes were barbaric, having to hunt and gather on
the station for most of their existence until Irons had arrived. Most of the
tribal leaders had been elected to their positions because they had either bested
their competition in battle or had bested more than one Dilgarth.

Romeo
sometimes wore a black hat festooned with the teeth and claws of the predators.
It reminded him of a hat an Australian wore in some ancient film series.
Something about crocodiles. Fu of course hated the hat and hated the display.

Juliet
occasionally wore a necklace of teeth and claws or had a claw attached to a
chain around her wrist. The tribes were proud of their heritage and clung to it
despite being provided modern clothing. That was another bone of contention
with the Fu's.

“I
know. You need to give them a say in their future or it will be a royal problem
for a long time. They live here too and have lived here for ages like you. They
unlike you
did
represent their people and their interests. It's hard to
grasp for both sides I think. But sometimes you have to deal with things as
they come and go. They need to understand limits and that they aren't going to
get everything they want all at once. It's just not possible.” He realized he
was flip flopping on the issue but couldn't help it. He understood both sides
of the argument.

“Something
Fu has said,” Sid responded with a tight lipped smile.

The
admiral nodded. “Then he of all people should understand. I think you are in
human resources; can you give some of the tribal leaders supervisor positions?
Assistant postings?”

“I
don't know.” The Berkhearts were still assimilating the changes and the new
personnel roster. They didn't have a true handle on the skill sets of many of
the people on the station. Obviously the Kiev had the better people, but they
were still woefully under trained compared to someone prior to the Xeno war.

It
would be nice to have someone from that time period. Well more anyway. They had
a couple of hundred sleepers but most were elderly or infirm. It galled him
that back before the Xeno war they had the pick of the litter, weeding out any
undesirables and focusing on those with the best pedigrees, the best education
and the highest levels of motivation and experience. Now they were left with
dregs.

“Please
consider it carefully. Also consider accelerating the educational initiatives.
That will also help in the long run,” the admiral said.

“I'll
certainly consider it,” Sid replied cautiously with a nod. He wasn't ready to
commit to the idea without first talking with Emily and a few of the others
though.

“Please
do. Good day,” Irons said with a polite nod as he left.

As
crews continued to do inventory, the shops and stores all over the station were
cleaned out. Yan Fu insisted on a hard count on everything that they take and
recycle. Irons was amused by the act but not amused at how it slowed the work
down. He couldn't really object so he shrugged it off.

He
didn't see the harm, but he didn't see the need either. Sure they could pay out
insurance money... or compensate the survivors if there were any. Currently
there were less than a dozen people on the station who might be owed
anything... all were cybers. Could that be it he wondered? No, none owned the
shops, he thought.

Perhaps
he intended to compensate the descendants of the survivors? Again that didn't
make sense. How could they tell who was owed what? Sure they could run a DNA
scan, but it would take months to sort it out, and seven hundred years of... no
that didn't make any sense either.

Of
course they had recently found a group of survivors in stasis pods. The pods
had been powered by their own emergency generator when the grid failed.
Apparently Draco had fed the pods power and refueled the generator whenever it
could. The people in the pods were having a rough time integrating with those
from this time period. He felt for them, he knew what they were going through
after all.

There
were a dozen sleepers; all were family members of some of the managers. Eight of
the 12 were kids under the age of puberty. That was a particular hard thing for
the staff to deal with. The kids were traumatized by the loss of their
families. Fortunately two of the older kids were teenage siblings of two of the
others and of course all the kids knew each other so they had someone to bond
to and help them adjust. Still it was going to be a rough ride knowing that
your world has been turned upside down and your family is gone.

Draco
had deleted the files about them on the net. They'd literally stumbled over
them when someone had traced a power line to an unmarked room. The tech had
found them and then had shaken like a leaf for some time. He'd later admitted
that he had been about to cut the power line until he'd decided on a whim to trace
it to see where it led.

Most
of the materials being recycled were consumer goods that they really didn't
need. Toys, furniture... electronics... anything that could be recycled and
wasn't needed was up for recycling right now. They could always make more
later. That had been how the tech had stumbled onto the line, he'd been tearing
apart the area.

Could
that be it? Irons thought. No, that didn't make sense either. He shrugged the
thought off and went back to work.

Howi
and Shari were a pair of neochimps who had run with the tribes. They were from
different tribes, Howi was from the Juliet tribe, and Shari had come from the
Romeo tribe.

Until
a few years ago both had been members of the Juliet tribe, last survivors of
their species. They were distant cousins; their parents had died of a fever
when they were young. The two of them had been brought up as siblings at one
point before a teenage Howi had left to join the Romeo tribe.

They
were two of the only neochimps on the station right now, other than that guard
guy 'what's his name'. He was a weird one, he'd married a neo gorilla bigger
then he was, Howi thought.

For
the past several years Howi had been a hunter, picking off the occasional
Dilgarth or prey animal to protect or support his tribe. He'd tried to court
Shari but she rebuffed his clumsy advances for a long time.

Shari
didn't like it that she and Howi were an item, it just sort of worked out that
way a few months ago. Howi was a good guy, he wasn't a total slob, but she
didn't like having to be forced to choose. Social pressure in the tribe had
done it, pushing them together. No human male would pick her over a human
female after all. She'd thought about approaching the other simian couple but
they had some weird things going on. A monogamous relationship it seemed,
something unusual in chimp society. She didn't like the idea of butting in and
possibly ruining it for both of them. She also didn't know how Howi would react
and didn't really want to find out. He could be viscous when he got mad.

 Now
they were trying to live in a now uncertain world.  They were even getting an
apartment together soon. She wasn't sure about that. Howi was barely adequate
in bed, but to live with the chump?

She
loved the guy as a brother but barely tolerated him as a lover when they first
got together. Hormones, she kept telling herself, that's what caused it.
Hormones and a lack of options.  That and fire, they both had a love of flame.
She seriously didn't want to have a kid with the guy. She definitely didn't
want to spend the rest of her
life
with him. Now she saw the world had
options and she chafed under his smothering touch.

Of
course they had some things in common other then species. Howi had always loved
fire. Shari had a healthy respect for it. He'd loved playing with it; her fear
had been a bit of a turn on. His lack of fear had her mixed up. On the one hand
it was brave and macho. On the other it was suicidal and stupid. But damn it
looked cool, especially when you were stoned on hooch.

Howi
had gotten into welding and cutting after a witnessing a welder at work while
he was clearing debris. That had a lot of the tribesmen bitter, they were stuck
on clean up details and shit work. He had talked the welder into showing him
how it's done during a lunch break. He hooked up with the weld team, taking in
classes as much as possible.

He
had found an old welding rig a long long time ago. As a kid he'd played with
the plasma torch until the fuel had run out. It had been a mesmerizing
experience, just staring into the flame. Now he dug it out and had it refueled.
Shari reluctantly followed along. It wasn't like she had anything better to do,
and cleaning crap wasn't something she wanted to spend the rest of her days
doing.

Shari
had found out a long time ago that she's more detail oriented then her chimp
partner. Howi is stronger of course, he's larger then her and is far more
aggressive but he has a short attention span and an even shorter fuse when
things went wrong. She used that to her advantage sometimes, flattering him
with comments about his strength to butter him up to do the heavy lifting. He
of course liked to show off. A few expressions of the cold shoulder when he
took his ire out on her had wizened him up a bit. He knew better then to go off
the deep end around her.

Still,
she preferred using the carrot over the stick; it's mutually beneficial after
all. She is part Bonobo so he knew where his showing off will eventually lead.
He had to admit, her approach to sex was a great tranquilizer. He felt rested
and less aggressive with her along.

Of
course from Shari's perspective he'd gotten a little better and a little worse
in his love making. She'd had a hell of a time training him in bed. Half the
time he wanted to sleep the moment he popped, sometimes collapsing on top of
her and snoring. That was annoying, the big oaf was heavy!

When
Joe the super in their sector heard of their interest in welding he had both of
them transferred to the welding teams. They had worked as apprentices for a
week before striking out on their own on small easy jobs. Both had volunteered
for the first group to undergo sleep teaching so they picked up the class work
easily. It was the hands on that took time, that and dealing with people on a
day to day basis and remaining civil.